Synaesthesia
by Loupee
Summary: "Synaesthesia - a union of the senses." As a synaesthete Peeta has always been able to see as well as hear the sounds and voices that surround him but now his ability appears to be morphing and developing. When his increasingly confusing symptoms attract the interest of overly curious strangers it leads him to question whether there is something more behind his condition.
1. Chapter 1

**Synaesthesia**

**Chapter One**

Peeta didn't want to go to school. He wanted to stay in bed under the warm covers where it was quiet but the nice lady Mags had said it would be all right. It was okay to be scared but he would enjoy it, there would be lots of other children there including some others from the home. One girl would actually be in his class. Katniss was her name. She was younger than him, all the children in his class would be because he had missed a year.

Mummy should have sent him to school earlier but she couldn't or didn't. He wasn't sure which. She hadn't been able to, something to do with _'__neglect__' _he had heard them say.

Mags had said he would be staying with her at the foster home for a while. There was a bunk bed in his room but he didn't have to share it, he had the bedroom all to himself. Mags said he could choose whether he slept in the top of the bottom.

Peeta wanted to climb up to the top bunk to sleep, but he was worried that if mummy came to look for him she might not see him hidden right up there. Besides he knew that ceilings were where spiders lived and he didn't want one falling on him in the night.

He liked Mags, she had a nice smile when she spoke to him that made her skin crinkle up. He wasn't sure why she was so happy, but the deep lines her smile had left on her face made him think she must smile a lot. Mummy didn't have lines like those.

Peeta liked the way Mags' name looked.

Mags had given him pyjamas to wear after his bath that had blue stripes and little pictures of boats on them. She apologised that they weren't new, but Peeta didn't understand why she was sorry, they felt soft and smelt like clean.

Mags had explained his school uniform was second hand too but that they would go shopping and get him some new shoes at the weekend. Mags had had to roll up the trouser legs and the sleeves on his school sweatshirt but he didn't mind. He liked the different colours of the letters of the school's name that were sewn into it above the stitched picture of a tree.

Mags had held his hand when they went to the school office. The headmistress seemed nice and she told him she was happy he was going to join them and that she was sure he'd soon make lots of new friends.

Peeta wasn't sure she was telling the truth. He'd never had a friend before, except for scruffy kitten before he ran away, but he knew she was trying to be nice so he smiled at her. Her name was Brown.

She took him to his new class room and introduced him to the teacher and the other children. His teacher had curly blond hair but her name was grey.

"Why don't you find a spot to sit on the carpet Peeta?" she said kindly and he sat down, awkwardly crossing his legs the way he saw the other children had done. The carpet was rough and scratchy blue.

"We're just going over some of our phonics sounds. Do you know what sound this letter makes Peeta?" He looked at the P on the whiteboard. "You have one at the beginning of your name don't you. Do you know what kind of sound it makes?"

He sucked his bottom lip, looking down at his hands away from the expectant eyes of the other children.

"A red one." He answered quietly into his lap.

"Sorry Peeta I didn't quite hear, could you tell me a little louder?" Teacher asked gently.

"A red one," he said looking up at her.

"A red what Peeta?"

"It makes a red one. Peeta makes a red sound."

Some of the other children laughed and the teacher gave him a confused but kindly look, before turning to the rest of the class. "Can anyone else tell me what sound P makes."

Hands shot up and one was selected and the answer "_pu_" given. "That's right Sophie, _pu_ as in puff, Pig or Peeta. Like blowing out a candle." The children held a finger in front of their lips and blew on them repeating the sound with the action.

Peeta didn't understand, _pu_ was still red, although darker than Peeta. Peeta was like the little red light on that glowed on the bottom of the TV when there was no picture, _pu_ was darker like blood.

He sucked his bottom lip into him mouth again. Tonguing the cut he found before chewing at the scab until he tasted the blood. That's what _pu_ would taste like too.

Peeta wished he was at home. He wanted mummy and the TV. If scruffy kitten came back who would feed him if Peeta wasn't there. And perhaps Mummy would be awake and she would make them toast and they could watch TV until she went out.

The teacher drew a line on the whiteboard and the P became a R. The class started making _rrrr_ noises and pretending to be little dogs.

Peeta didn't join in, he was fascinated that one line could change the letter's colour so much. It was no longer red but a creamy sickly white. The colour the milk went when it had been in the fridge too long and it tasted bitter.

Peeta liked the little carton of milk the teacher gave him to drink at mid-morning, it was cold and fresh and he especially liked it when he got to pierce the little foil circle on the top with the straw. He liked the little coloured blocks the class used to count with and the box of lego bricks. He liked the roast chicken, vegetables and roast potatoes that he had for lunch. And he really liked the apple crumble and custard for pudding afterwards.

Some of the children talked to Peeta but he was happiest when he was sat at the writing table on his own. He spent a long time trying to find the right colour pen to match each of the letters he copied from the alphabet sheet.

At the end of the day Mags came to collect him and Katniss.

"Did you two have a good day?" She asked as she walked them home. Peeta nodded.

"And did you look after Peeta at lunch time like I asked you to Katniss?" she enquired with a raised eyebrow, already knowing the answer.

Katniss didn't respond.

"Katniss?" she prompted.

"I don't want to play with Peeta, he's weird." Katniss pouted sulkily.

Peeta stared at her with an open mouth and she glared back at him with grumpy frown.

Peeta was used to each letter and word having its own colour, sometimes the depth or brightness varied depending on the person's voice but they were still variations of the same colour. But Katniss was different. Every sound out of her mouth was yellow. Soft and buttery, bright sunshine, glistening gold, a spectrum of hues and shades. But the one he liked best was when she said his name.

Peeta wasn't red when Katniss said it. It was glowing soft almost orange. He'd seen the colour before, sat in his bedroom window waiting to see if mummy would come home before dark when the sun had dropped behind the tall shadows of the neighbouring tower blocks that surrounded his own.

Katniss made his name glow like a sunset.

* * *

**Notes**:

Synaesthesia (synesthesia) is a "neurological phenomenon in which stimulation of one sensory or cognitive pathway leads to automatic, involuntary experiences in a second sensory or cognitive pathway." It can take on various forms, from seeing sounds to tasting and even feeling them and letters having specific colours. I've taken a bit of an artistic license with Peeta's symptoms and admit they have no correct medical basis at all. But hey this is a bit of fiction!

School in England starts for children at age 4 (you have to be 4 before 31 August to start the school year in September.) If he's missed a year then Peeta is at least 5, I like to think he's closer to 6. Katniss is still 4.

I had no idea how to spell the phonics sound so went with Pu. P as in Puff, U as in Umbrella. So not poo!

Not sure what kind of story this is going to be yet rating wise but there is going to be a big time jump to more grown up Peeta and Katniss for the rest of the story, so I'll give it a M to be on the safe side.

**Reviews**? Do I hear you wondering whether you can be bothered to leave one of not? Go on! I'd love you to - pleeeease (beg beg grovel). I'm stuck in a house with a couple of sick kids and in need of some TLC myself so send me some via a review and let me know whether to continue with this or not.

p.s. I've really missed writing fanfic - I'd forgotten what fun it was!

Oh and this isn't beta'd so all mistakes are totally my fault.


	2. Chapter 2

_**I'll apologise up front that this ended up being about twice the length that I intended it to be but I couldn't find a suitable place to chop it.**_

* * *

**Chapter 2**

Peeta tugged on the corner of the bedspread straightening out the creases and took another glance around the apartment which essentially, apart from the bathroom, was contained within one room. He felt irrationally nervous about the arrival of his guest considering she was his oldest friend, but her approval was important to him, he wanted Katniss to like the place.

Strange how things had worked out. Of all the people who had passed through his life, the years he'd spent yo-yoing back and forth between social care and home life with his mother, he had never expected Katniss' presence to have endured when others had fallen by the way.

They hadn't exactly hit it off that first day at school, although for him what should have been a hurtful memory was forever bathed in a favourable light, focusing not on Katniss' surly rejection but on the first time he heard the colour of his name when spoken by her.

Peeta had never been able to understand the difference between Katniss' voice and everyone else's. Words didn't look the same when she spoke them, even when she raised her voice in temper they were warming. Although the angrier she was the more they verged on the bright hot blaze of a flame.

The first time he heard her sing, in class that very first week at school, Peeta had been unable to believe the wonder before his eyes. The sounds danced before him, blending with her song, a swirling stream of colours. Of course he made a fool of himself standing up and trying to reach out to them causing the other children to laugh at him. Peeta hadn't understood why they hadn't wanted to catch the dancing lights as well.

It wasn't long after that incident that Peeta was referred to a specialist. The silver ghost lady he had called her because that's what she was, from her sleek grey hair, pale skin and eyes, to the nondescript grey suit she wore. Even her name was almost colourless, like a sliver of wispy cloud with just a ghost of silver within it. He saw her regularly over that year and she helped him to understand as best as he could at that age what he was experiencing. All about the body's senses and how for him two of them had become coupled, like twins holding hands and working naturally together.

She had let him into a secret on his first visit, which at the time he truly believed was an actual confidence between just the two of them, that she was an synaesete just like him. She explained that not everyone was as lucky as they were. Most people couldn't see as well as hear the spoken word like he could or taste it like she did. They weren't alone, there were others like them, but it still made them _special_ and the other _ordinary_ children at school would never fully be able to understand what they experienced.

_Special_. Peeta still remembered the astonishment he'd felt at being told he was special and the pride he'd worn from the secret knowledge for weeks afterwards until it was knocked out of him in the playground.

One of the older boys at school recognised him as an easy target. Peeta's early years had left him pathetically ill-equipped to deal with the playground bully and his response at the first sign of violence was the same as it had always been to crouch down, cover his head with his arms and not put up any resistance that would anger the perpetrator and prolong or aggravate the attack. Of course that just made him a sitting duck to the bully's kicks and taunts.

On this occasion Peeta wasn't singled out because of the unusual behaviour or comments his synaesthesia inevitably caused him to make but rather for his ill fitting clothes and his weedy size, years of undernourishment having left him small for his age. Peeta clearly remembered the jibes and catcalls from the bigger boy and the growing crowd of on-lookers, their cruel remarks and then their abrupt end. Peering from between his forearms he saw his attacker bent double, hugging his middle and Katniss stood before him seconds before she kneed him in the nose.

They were all sent to the headmistress' office where Peeta remembered the agonisingly uncomfortable silence and the stares of his peers boring into him as he reported all the things Jet Cato had said to him and what he had seen Katniss doing.

"You weren't supposed to tell her the truth!" Katniss had hissed at him when they left the office. It was the last words she spoke directly to him for a least a fortnight but the memory of the bright dandelion yellow of 'truth' stayed with him for much longer.

Letters were sent home to their parents, or in Peeta and Katniss' case to Mags, and all three of them were kept in at playtime for the next three weeks. Forced to sit in a classroom watching Mrs Redmond knit and struggle with the daily crossword whilst the rest of the school played outside in the sunshine.

It wasn't exactly a time of great bonding, both Jet and Katniss blamed their lunch time incarceration on Peeta and his naive innocent compulsion to tell the whole story to the headmistress.

Peeta wasn't sure if Katniss looked at him without a scowl on her face for the rest of the six months he spent at the foster home before he was returned to his mother. He wasn't home for long before a visiting social worker discovered Ruby Mellark hadn't been home for three days and Peeta was bounced straight back into care.

Peeta wasn't so lucky this time instead of a small home with a smiling carer he ended up in a larger children's unit, where he was just one of many. It was in a different part of the city, so he had to start a new school, a larger rougher one than his first.

In the year he spent there before the courts decided his mother had successfully rehabilitated and was fit to look after him again, he learnt to keep his head down and his mouth shut about colours if he didn't want to become a target for bored bullies.

Life settled down a lot after that, Peeta and his mother moved into a new flat in a different part of town, the building had a garden and she got him a new cat. Ruby Mellark was never going to win mother of the year but looking back on it Peeta was certain she was trying the best she could. Ruby got a job, she didn't disappear out every night and even remembered to buy groceries and cook most of the time.

Peeta made some friends at school, he struggled in most academic subjects but soon discovered he was good at practical lessons like art, woodwork and cooking where he could use his hands.

Everything changed just before Peeta's eleventh birthday when Ruby got a new boyfriend, Cray Schwartz. First she started staying at his place and then Cray started hanging out at theirs. Soon he'd practically moved in.

It started first with little digs; disparaging remarks about the constant doodles and drawings Peeta produced and tended to leave about the house or smart arse cracks about his weight, Peeta being in an awkward podgy stage prior to a growth spurt.

From there it seemed to naturally progress to little physical inflictions such as a painful flick of his ear if Peeta annoyed Cray in someway. "It was just a joke, I don't mean no harm," Cray would say laughing it off but the flicks and the comments became harsher and more frequent. There were days when everything Peeta did annoyed Cray. He said the wrong things, left his things in the wrong place, disturbed Cray and Ruby when he wasn't wanted, was branded a greedy fat lump when hungrily he asked if there was anything to eat, even looking at Cray in the wrong way was enough to set him off.

Then a slap round the head one day, when Peeta accidentally knocked over Cray's beer can, marked the turning point when Cray's behaviour moved from bullying to true abuse. "I hardly touched the boy," Cray had scoffed when Ruby had confronted him about Peeta's claim that Cray had hit him. "That boy's too soft. You spoil him. You've turned him into to a big soft mummy's boy." When Ruby had left the room, Cray had grabbed Peeta's shirt pulling him back preventing him from following his mother. "That's the last time you go running and crying to mummy do you understand?" Cray warned towering over him a fistful of Peeta's shirt still in his hand. "Cause I'm telling you, you don't want it to come down to a decision between the two of us, 'cause I know she'd pick me."

Looking back on it Peeta never knew whether at that point Cray was right or not, if Peeta had just spoken up and told his mother then perhaps she would have thrown Cray out. But he wasn't confident that she would pick him, she had already left him once before.

Cray got meaner as his and Ruby's drinking got heavier. She lost her job and then the two of them hardly ever surfaced before noon. There would be days without food in the fridge and there would be no money to pay for groceries. Then Cray would turn up with cash, lots of it sometimes, and then there would be food and the two of them would be drunk or high for days.

Cray was always careful that he didn't leave marks where they were visible and Peeta didn't take his vest off when he was changing for gym at school. No one saw the bruises and Peeta never mentioned them again to his mother. Cray's name which had once been an icy blue, turned more foul by the day until it resembled the blue-grey mould that grows on old bread and it made Peeta feel physically sick when he saw it.

Inevitably Cray and Ruby started fighting, their alcohol fuelled rows could last for hours, doors slammed, things thrown and broken and then he started hitting her. The first time Peeta saw a bruise on his mother's face she claimed she'd fallen down and it was feasible, considering how out of it she'd been the night before.

But the second time he wasn't so sure.

By the third and the fourth and the fifth time he knew.

When Peeta heard the screams for Cray to stop behind the slammed bedroom door he thought Cray was going to kill her. Peeta ran out the flat, ran to a phone box and called the police.

By the time the police turned up the domestic fight was over and everything had calmed down. But they were concerned about a minor living in such an environment and it appeared they knew Cray. In fact they'd been looking for him, there was an outstanding drugs enquiry they wanted his help with.

"You fucking little shit, I'm going to beat the crap out of you when I get back home." Cray had promised as he was led out of the apartment.

The police officer had urged Ruby Mellark to consider taking out a restraining order so that Cray couldn't come back, but she wouldn't hear of it. It was none of the police's business, the fight had been Ruby's fault she'd made a mistake, Cray wasn't usually like that he loved her.

Peeta was taken into care that evening and Ruby died of injuries sustained during a domestic dispute with Cray only two months later.

Peeta wound up in a children's home not all that far from where he had once lived with Mags all those years ago, although he didn't know it at the time and wouldn't have cared anyway.

Given his age he was enrolled at the local secondary school, a huge sprawling inner-city comprehensive, where the beleaguered teachers neither bothered to keep track nor cared which pupils turned up for lessons or not. The place was too large and too loud and sometimes the sensory overload of it all was just too much to stand, it made Peeta's head hurt.

Peeta bunked off most lessons except for art, design technology and cookery, and took about counting down the days until he could escape from the dump.

He didn't notice the dark haired girl that joined the school a year later with the rest of that years intake.

But she noticed him. She recognised him straight away. Even though the innocent fresh face was now jaded and sullen. She saw the dull light in his once bright eyes and she saw him sneak off the school grounds when he thought no one was looking.

She heard about him getting into fights, she saw the split lip and the bruises afterwards and she remembered the little boy that first day sucking on his bust lip and remembered how she'd known how it felt to receive one.

Peeta was leaving school one day, when his attention was attracted by a car horn. Turning to find a woman waving at him out of the driver's window. He frowned deciding it couldn't be at him and put his head down and carried on walking.

"Peeta! Peeta!"

He turned at the sound of his voice and there was Mags. A little older but still the same, even if she hadn't have been he would have known it was her simply from the smile.

"Peeta, let me look at you. My how you've grown." She said taking in his broad shoulders and the bruise on his cheek, and thought to herself that she didn't like the look of exactly what he was growing into. "How are you? Where are you living now?"

"The Rougemont Centre."

"Ah yes, I know the place. You like it there?"

"You know the place, what do you think?"

Her smile didn't falter at his gruff retort. Instead she continued unfazed, "I've got a free bed at the moment. I couldn't offer you your own room, but then I don't expect you've got one of those at the centre have you? So what do you say, if I can agree the transfer would you consider coming to live with me again?"

Peeta shrugged like he couldn't care either way.

It was weeks before the paperwork was authorised, by which time Peeta had believed he was right not to hope for too much.

A social worker drove him to Mags' house on a saturday morning. Mags showed him the room he was to share with a younger boy, introduced him to a slight little thing called Primrose and then knocking before opening a bedroom door she said, " And of course you know Katniss already."

"Hello Peeta." She responded giving him a stiff smile from where she sat cross legged on her bed.

And there it was, even in the less that warm greeting, the colour he hadn't seen since he'd last seen Katniss. The warm glow of the last embers of daylight and he swore he felt it just as much as saw it that night.

"Katniss," He'd nodded back with just as much reserve but her name sprung up lush and green like a summer meadow after the rain.

When he lay in bed that night he allowed a smile to spread across his face where no one could see it in the dark, as he basked in the memory of the glow of his name.

Peeta had wondered what had brought Mags back into his life and when he realised Katniss went to the same school, he quizzed her about whether she had told Mags about him but she brushed it off and simply said she might have mentioned seeing him. But despite her denial he knew his new home was because of Katniss and he was grateful.

They caught the same bus to school each day. Initially Katniss would wear her headphones all the way there and back without talking. But little by little bits of conversation leaked into their routine. Just stuff about teachers, Mags and homework.

One day she turned to him and said, "Do you still see colours?"

Peeta nodded. "Why?"

"Just wondered, you know if you still could or they fixed you."

"It's not something they can fix, this is just the way I am." He'd muttered gruffly.

'I just wondered, you don't mention it any more," and then a little quieter as she put her headphones back on and turned to gaze out the window, "I'm glad." Leaving him to wonder the rest of the journey whether she was glad he didn't talk about it anymore or that he still saw colours.

A couple of days later after school as they walked home from the bus stop Katniss asked, "What colour am I?"

"Your name is green."

"What kind of green?" She pressed with a frown. When told her face softened marginally as she acquiesced with a shrug, "I suppose that's okay, I guess I can live with that."

"It's not as if there's a choice, I don't get to choose which colours I see." Peeta regretting his curt reply as soon as it left his mouth. Knowing that his bad mood and sharp tone were the result of a shitty afternoon at school where his History teacher had picked apart his flawed essay in front of the class and not Katniss' fault.

Later that evening Peeta literally bumped into her as they both left their bedrooms headed to the bathroom at the same time.

He let her go first, but turned at the last second seeing a chance to make amends for snapping at her earlier on. "Katniss, you know I said that you're green." She nodded. "Well your name is, but you aren't. You're yellow."

"Yellow? You mean people have colours too?"

"No, well not really, normally just their names. But you, when you speak its all yellow."

"Really?" She looked puzzled. "So just me? No one else?"

He shook his head. "No, you're special." Instantly mortified at his choice of words and adding quickly in an off-hand way to downplay his slip, "I don't know why."

Katniss mulled it over before concluding simply, "I'm glad I'm not pink."

Just before the bathroom door swung shut Peeta saw Katniss' reflection as she stood before the bathroom mirror regarding herself, her lips firmly pressed together looking to Peeta as if she were fighting to contain a pleased smile.

Other children came and went from Mags' home, some long stayers, some staying only a few months but he and Katniss remained. Growing together, never quite admitting that they liked each other, until finally they were friends and they weren't quite sure how they'd got that way. Sharing all the ups and downs, arguments, teasing and laughter, that together with the constant caring affection of Mags made them a family. There had been a point, around about the same time that his hormones had kicked in, that he'd thought about Katniss in a different way but he knew she only ever viewed him like a brother, so he had stamped those feelings down not allowing them to get in the way of their friendship.

Since Peeta had moved out a couple of weeks ago they'd only seen each other once and it felt wrong after sharing a house and sleeping across the hall from each other for years. But his job meant he worked long hours and he knew he was disrupting everyone when he came home late. He was too old to share a room and he knew it made Mags sad to have to turn down requests to take children in need. It wasn't just a job for her, she thrived on helping children.

Peeta had left school as soon as he could, getting a job at a hotel restaurant that allowed him day release to attend catering college and work at night. It made sense for him to get a place close to work.

The apartment wasn't much but once he qualified and found a better job he would be able to afford somewhere better and in the meantime it was fine. It wasn't like he spent much time there anyway, he didn't get into late, slept until mid-morning and then was usually out for the rest of the day.

It was only now that he had company coming round for the first time that he felt embarrassed about the lack of furniture. There was a sink, kettle, toaster and a little hob in one corner that acted as a kitchen but most of the time he ate at work so it hadn't mattered before that there was no table or chairs. There was a TV was plonked on top of an old shelving unit he'd found dumped out on the street on rubbish collection day and a double bed that had come with the apartment but that was pretty much it in regards to furnishings.

If anyone came round they'd have to sit on his bed which he now realised could make some people feel uncomfortable so he was glad that it was only Katniss, she wouldn't mind.

The door bell rang and Peeta rushed to stick his head out the window. Katniss was waving up at him and he waved back.

"You going to let me in or just stand there waving all day?" She yelled up.

"Its on the latch, just give it a shove and close it after you." He called back down.

He opened his apartment door and a moment later she appeared slightly out of breath.

"Shit Mellark! How many stairs? I think I've got altitude sickness."

"What do you expect it's the penthouse!"

"Yeah right, if this is a penthouse then I'm the Queen."

Peeta felt his ears prick hot with embarrassment at the same time Katniss realised she had insulted his flat.

"Damn! I'm sorry, you know I didn't mean it like that… I just… shit… you know I never say the right thing. This place is great," she said looking about her. "Its yours you know. Your very own place, no one else's. I'm just jealous."

"Living with Mags isn't that bad.'

"I know, but one day I'd just like to have somewhere I could say was completely mine."

"Well I don't know about completely mine, this still belongs to the landlord."

"Yeah but you can come and go when you want. You don't have to tell anyone where you are or when you're going to get back."

"Why where do you want to go?" Peeta asked with what he thought was only normal big brotherly concern but with _whom_ was what he really wanted to know.

"Nowhere, anywhere, I don't know." She shrugged walking over to the window, leaning out to look at drop to the pavement below and then up and out over the roof tops. "I take it back Peeta," she said admiring the view, "its worth the hike up all those stairs, I like it up here."

He grinned as she turned to him, made happy by her enthusiastic smile of approval.

"I bought you something as a flat warming and an early birthday present," she said.

"It's not until next week."

"I know but you'll be working."

She shrugged out of the straps of her backpack, looking about her before walking to the bed to put it down, unzipping it and pulling out a bottle.

"Not quite champagne but it is at least bubbly."

"Where did you get this?" He asked looking at the bottle of cheap cava and then raising his eyebrows at her, "Did you get hold of another fake ID?"

"No, I got Gale to buy it for me."

Despite the yellow hue of her words whenever she said Gale it was the closest any of her words came to being another colour. Brown - a dirty shitty yellowy brown. Peeta ignored the fact it was very close to the colour of jealously.

"How is Gale?" He asked through gritted teeth.

"Good, he sends his love." She teased knowing how much Peeta disliked him. "Honestly I don't know what you've got against him, he's a good guy."

Gale played drums in a local band that Katniss sang backing for from time to time. Peeta hated the way Gale acted like he was god's gift to women, it didn't help that the band already had their own local tribe of fans who threw themselves at them whenever they played a gig. But mainly he didn't like the way Gale looked at Katniss.

"Do you have any glasses?" Katniss asked.

"Um…mugs?" He suggested apologetically walking to the kitchen corner to pull them out of the cupboard. Katniss held them by the handle as he popped the cork and poured them both a mugful.

"Classy Peeta," she smirked looking at the brown floral design on the circa 1980s mug and he grinned taking his drink from her.

"Hey, don't knock the classic design or I'll confiscate yours for being an underage drinker."

"Don't get all cocky Mellark it's not your eighteenth until next week. So if I'm underage then so are you."

"Ok I wont tell if you don't." He smiled.

"Cheers, here's to you having a very happy eighteenth birthday and to your new _batchelor_ pad."

She seemed to suddenly realise where she was sat and shifted her weight a little uncomfortably. "So have you…you know christened the…er…batchelor pad yet?"

"I've been here two weeks?"

"And?"

"I work most nights and I'm in college most days, when would I have had time to get a girlfriend in the last fortnight."

"I don't know. You don't actually have to be dating someone to have sex with them Peeta." She stated.

He stared at her with alarm. Was that what she was doing? He was pretty sure she didn't have a boyfriend, she'd never shown any interest in having one, so it had never crossed his mind that she might be having sex.

"Are you….are you and Gale?"

"No!" She sounded shocked and Peeta felt himself relax, "but he did ask me on a date." And he instantly tensed again.

"You can't go out with him!" He blurted and then scrabbled to find a reason other than he really didn't want her to. "I mean you can't Gale's too old and you're…you know only sixteen."

"He's only a bit older than you."

"Hardly he's nineteen, he's basically an adult and you're …"

"A child?" She asked haughtily.

"Yes, no…" Shit! Peeta had no idea how he'd just managed to dig himself such a hole but worried he was about to make it deeper.

"Is that how you see me?" She demanded.

"No."

"So why shouldn't I date Gale? It's not like anyone else is going to ask me out is it?" Her tone wasn't rhetorical it was challenging, her gaze expectant waiting for his answer.

Peeta took a big gulp of his wine, taking his time hiding behind his mug wary of how to respond. Katniss was hot tempered, 'latin blood' Mags had commented once as if that explained it all, and they'd had more than their fair share of arguments over the years but he didn't want to fight now and sour the whole afternoon, not over bloody Gale Hawthorne.

When Peeta lowered his drink Katniss was still looking at him over the rim of her mug as she sipped on her drink.

"I'm sixteen Peeta and I've never even kissed a boy," she said leaving a pregnant pause as she took another sip before continuing, "I might as well go out with Gale if no one else is interested." Again it felt more like a weighted question rather than a statement.

Peeta gawped at her frozen like a rabbit caught in headlights, he swallowed thickly audibly gulping. There was a little part inside of him doing an Irish-fricking-jig at the news that no one had kissed her, that meant she hadn't kissed Hawthorne, but there was another much larger part frozen solid and sweating in panic thinking_ Fuck! Fuck! Exactly what is she saying, is she saying what I think she__'__s saying, or am I imagining that she__'__s saying what I wish she was saying? Fuck! What does she want me to do?_ _Am I supposed_ _to say something? What does she want me to say?_ Because it felt a lot like she was asking if he was interested. But if Peeta followed his instinct and rekindled those feelings he'd dismissed years ago, the ones that had been slowly still glowing way down deep buried under his assumed brotherly act, the ones that burnt with jealously every time Gale fucking Hawthorne threw an arm round Katniss' shoulders, and he acted on impulse and then found out he'd read her messages wrong he could screw up the most important friendship in his life. But if he was right then fuck that would be the best birthday present ever!

Contending with his own inner-turmoil Peeta was unaware of the similar struggle taking place within Katniss as she picked up the bottle of cava and poured another large mugful for them both. Watching the bubbles chase up to the rim then subside down before taking another mouthful, hoping to numb her nervousness with the happy mellow fuzz from the afternoon drinking. But Peeta's silence was threatening to making her jittery, so rather than wait for it to end she stood up looking for a way to fill it. "Got any music Peeta?"

He pointed to the iPod plugged into mini speakers that sat on the kitchen counter.

"Where d'you get this?"

"It was Finn's he's buying a new one so he sold me his old one. The speakers are a bit crapy, I picked them up in the market, but they'll do 'til I can afford some better ones."

Katniss started scrolling though the music. "This is an interesting choice of music you've got here Mellark," she teased relieved at the normality of the conversation this distraction offered, "it's more than a bit random."

"Like Finn. It's what he already had loaded on it."

"Hey its got my song." She grinned and seconds later Coldplay filtered through the tinny sounding speakers.

Peeta watched as she wandered back towards him, her hips swaying slightly to the rhythm and singing along to the song. Watching her sing was undoubtedly his favourite thing in the world it topped anything else he ever experienced. Katniss was aware he enjoyed seeing the colours created by songs but he'd never told her that it was especially true with her.

"…and it was all yellow," she beamed at him, "your skin, oh yeah your skin and bones, turn into to something beautiful." The word bloomed like a flower before him, opening its honey coloured petals blossoming out from her centre. "You know, you know I love you so, you know I love you so."

Love from her lips had always taken his breath away, he hadn't been able to put a name to the colour before he started his catering course but the first time he saw the spice he knew. Saffron. And just like the spice's threads it was not quite yellow, not red, not orange but a deep vivid mixture of all three. Today it seemed intensified in her singing, creating a rich exotic swathe of colour that he longed to reach out and touch. If he could feel instead of see the word he was certain it would be luxuriously soft and velveteen, he would sink into its embrace enfolded in its warmth.

He looked to her face and her eyes held the same intensity as the colour.

"Dance with me Peeta?"

"You know I can't dance." His own voice sounded strained and alien to him.

"Who's going to see you?" _You_ he thought and he really didn't want her to remember what a clumsy idiot he was on the dance floor.

"Have you eaten, I brought home some bread from work and I've got cheese and grapes." He said attempting to change the subject.

"Maybe later, I don't want to kill the buzz from the wine. I'm enjoying feeling squiffy."

"Squiffy?" he repeated amused.

She nodded with a grin. "Very. Come on please dance with me." She pleaded tugging at his hand.

Peeta laughed at her attempt at puppy dog eyes and with a dramatic sigh gave in and let her pull him to his feet.

She looped her arms about his neck and swayed gently, teasingly close to his body without actually being up against him. She continued to sing as the song moved toward its end. Peeta swallowed hard trying to rationalise what was happening. He knew for a fact that Katniss had always treated him like a friend or an annoying brother, with all the usually teasing and squabbling that involved, she was both his oldest friend and together with Mags the closest he had to family. Katniss had never given any indication she felt about him in any other way. In fact she had never given any indication she felt that way about any boys at school.

It was ridiculous to read anything into the way she was acting, it was just Katniss being a bit drunk and wishful thinking on his part. But it was hard to be rational when Katniss wasn't acting like herself at all. Singing to him, dropping loaded comments about no one wanting to kiss her as if she was laying an open invitation for him, trying to get him drunk, dancing with him like this. If it weren't so ludicrously out of the question it would seem like some mad attempt at seduction. But it couldn't be, could it?

With sudden blinding clarity he decided there was only way to find out, make a move and show how he felt. His moment of decisive courage lasted only that a minute before it was over, ending as suddenly as it started, replaced by a wave of sensible doubt that told him it could be wiser to play it safe, ignore what his gut instinct was telling him and choose to do nothing instead. If he went with option one it could go two ways. He liked to hope it would end up with him kissing her and it would be great, but it could just as equally be that he had misread the whole situation and was about to completely screw up everything. Then again he could follow option two ignore the signals, do nothing and absolutely waste the moment, risk making Katniss think he wasn't interested, shit possibly sending her straight into the arms of Gale. _Why shouldn__'__t I date Gale__?__ It__'__s not like anyone else is going to ask me out is it?_

As one song ended the next began. It was an acoustic live recording, just a guitar and a male vocal. It took Peeta a moment to recognise the song but when the lyrics began, he closed his eyes, with an internal curse. What was with this music! Who knew Finnick was such a bloody romantic why couldn't the next song have been one of his more usual drum n bass tracks? Katniss was no longer singing along and Peeta let the kaleidoscope of colours evoked by the male's voice wash through his mind.

_Settle down with me __  
__Cover me up __  
__Cuddle me in __  
__Lie down with me __  
__Hold me in your arms __Your heart's against my chest __  
__Lips pressed to my neck __  
__I've fallen for your eyes __  
__But they don't know me yet __And the feeling I forget __  
__I'm in love now _

Fuck if that wasn't a sign he didn't know what was. Peeta opened his eyes and Katniss was looking at him. Not her usual toughened self, but wearing a hesitant look of uncertainty as she mouthed in synch with the singer. " Kiss me like you wanna be loved."

So he did as the lyrics continued,

_This feels like I've fallen in love __  
__Fallen in love __  
__Fallen in love_

And as she pressed her lips softly with his in the sweetest kiss Peeta thought he finally knew what it felt like to be wrapped in the rich warm comfort of love.

* * *

**Authors note:**

**So help me out here as I'm really undecided, do I do another time jump or do I carry on from this point and explore this early stage of their relationship? (As well as actually getting the real story going.) I'd really be interested to know what you think.**

**Songs were of course Yellow - Coldplay (just couldn't resist!) and Kiss Me - Ed Sheeran**

**Oh and I forgot to say before but this is based in England 'cause that's where I am. So legal drinking age is 18 and you can leave school at 17. Children can stay in foster care until the age of 21 with state funding. **

**I was really blown away by the encouraging reviews for the first chapter and I hope this chapter wasn't too long or too boring for you, I just wanted to get some of the background stuff out the way. Let me know what you think.**


	3. Chapter 3

_**Okay I have to admit to not knowing a huge amount about synaesthesia but this chapter is the point where we take a big step away from the reality of the ****condition and into supernatural fiction. Hope you enjoy, please see notes at the end.**_

* * *

**Chapter Three**

Peeta put his hand on Katniss' hip pulling her in for another kiss, his hand finding its way easily to the small of her back holding her to him as their lips met. The fingers of his other hand threading into her hair as his tongue moved with hers, almost losing all sense of the sounds and their accompanying colours that surrounded him in the process.

Katniss' body melted against his leaning into the kiss as his hand continued its descent just reaching its goal to navigate the round of her backside when she forcibly pushed him away.

"Stop it!" she said stepping backwards and his heart sank.

"Don't think that I don't know what you're up to Mellark! I know you're trying to distract me so that I wont make you dance, you're so transparent Peeta."

Peeta groaned, "Come on Katniss don't make me. You know I always manage to embarrass myself," the horror of last Friday night when he'd somehow managed to simultaneously elbow a girl in the face and knock a bottle of beer out of someone's hand and straight down someone else's back still mortifyingly fresh in his mind.

"Would you rather I found someone else to dance with?" She asked with a devilish look of innocence, knowing Peeta's weakness. One look at Katniss in her ridiculously small dress and then at the dance floor behind him, which suddenly seemed to him to be full of single males, and Peeta resigned himself to dancing. Peeta allowed Katniss to drag him out into the middle of the dance floor where, after finding a suitable spot in the throng, she began to move. Whilst her body sinuously synched with the music Peeta shuffled woodenly side to side, wishing he'd managed to get a few more beers under his belt before being forced to humiliate himself. Luckily the club's dance floor was packed, everyone too engrossed in their own movements to pay attention to him, so there was still hope that as long as he managed not to inflict any physical damage on those around him he might actually manage to survive the torturously awkward ordeal unnoticed.

As she danced Katniss' hair inadvertently flicked into the face of the dancer over her shoulder drawing his attention. Peeta saw the way the man's eyes first travelled over Katniss' undulating body and then, casting a quick glance in his direction, take in Peeta's stiff shuffling form. Peeta's uncomfortable body language must have been enough for the guy to decide he was in with a chance, as he subtly changed his dancing orientation to position himself alongside rather than behind Katniss.

The way he was looking at Katniss and his blatant disregard for the fact she was already with someone pissed Peeta off. Gritting his teeth Peeta slipped an arm around Katniss' waist reeling her in towards him, she complied but much to his chagrin she shook her head when he tried to kiss her. Peeta saw a flash of satisfaction in her admirer's eyes, clearly thinking he hadn't lost all hope of having a shot with her.

Possessively Peeta pulled Katniss a little closer, so that their bodies were moving together, but as his movements were stiffer and more ungainly than hers he only succeeded in throwing her rhythm off beat.

"I can never understood how you can be so artistic, so physical, you're basically good at anything practical you put your hand to but when it comes to dancing you are _so_ stiff." She said with a bemused shake of her head.

"Well I think _that_ particular problem has a lot to do with that dress you're wearing."

"But I thought you liked this dress." She said with feigned ignorance.

"You know I do, that's the problem, I like it too much". And by way of demonstration he pulled her flush with his body so that she could fully feel the evidence of his admiration, letting his hands sit firmly on her ass as he did so and simultaneously shooting Katniss' admirer a smug smirk over her shoulder. "Seriously the way your ass looks in that dress is it any wonder I'm stiff."

Katniss gave a pained groan, unsurprised and unimpressed by his cheesy and predictable joke.

"Hey you can't blame me or my dress for your dancing inhibitions but, come on, you have to admit there are some definite benefits to dancing with me," Katniss said slipping her hand between their bodies to mould around the protrusion in his trousers and in doing so extracting a muttered curse from him. "So how about you quit the staring contest with whoever it is that's got under your skin." She took a quick look over her shoulder to where Peeta's unwanted rival was still watching them, turning back to Peeta with an 'ew' face and a dramatic shudder of distaste. "I think we both know you don't have anything to worry about there, or ever. So come on" she abruptly removed her hand from the front of his trousers, "you won, you got the girl, now buy me a drink."

Peeta just smiled because all joking aside Katniss was right, he was confident that she wasn't interested in anyone else. Sometimes he wasn't quite sure why - beautiful, intelligent and sassy as she was - she had picked him, all he knew was he was glad she had. And everything about their relationship over the last two years, the open honest way they were in each others company, the way he knew they felt about each other, it all just felt so right, so meant to be. Looking back at their friendship with hindsight, the way they'd grown up and grown together over the years, it seemed inevitable that they should have end up this way. But just because he didn't feel threatened, it didn't mean he liked the way that other guys looked at her. The way Katniss' body had matured and filled out in the last few years meant she attracted her fair share of unwanted admirers, like the horny mutt on the dance floor tonight unashamedly sniffing about her. And whilst Peeta knew Katniss was capable of handling them herself he still felt the urge to protect her.

Weaving back through the crowd, they found their friends propped near the bar.

"Finnick?!" Katniss exclaimed in faux concern, "are you alright? Has the city run out of single girls or are you sick, 'cause by now," she looked at her watch for dramatic effect, "shouldn't you have at least two blondes draped over you fighting about who gets to suck your cock later?"

"He's not interested," Jo said coming up for air from snogging her selected random guy of the evening. "He's met someone."

"Mm-hmm," agreed Clove from where she was stood with her hand slipped into the back pocket of Thresh, her had been ex-boyfriend up until that evening, signalling that their on again off again relationship was currently back on, at least for tonight. "He's in love."

"Love!" Katniss was genuinely surprised and Peeta choked on his beer. Finnick was forever commenting that he didn't know how Peeta managed to remain in a long term relationship. Peeta knew Finn liked Katniss, it wasn't that he had anything against her personally, it was simply that he couldn't understand why anyone would want to get tied down in a serious relationship when there were just so many available girls out there. "Don't know how you do it mate, how d'you know she's the one if you haven't tried anyone else. It's like cars init? You'd never drive your first car for the rest of your life would you? You got to take a few for a test drive before you find a keeper and even then you're going to want to upgrade to a newer model every few years." Had been one of Finnick's finer analogies.

But despite his disposable attitude to women good looks, the gift of the gab and a swoon worthy charming smile meant Finnick was never short of a girlfriend.

"He met a girl last night, but she's not interested," Clove elaborated.

"No, she'd obviously heard what a man-whore he his," Jo added.

"She's beautiful." Finnick slurred clearly worst for wear already. "Annie, she's a hairdresser or beautician or sumfin'. Annie the beautiful beautician."

"Blonde?" Katniss wondered.

"No? What is it with you and the blondes? I am not and have never been prejudiced against any women due to their hair colour whether natural or not, I don't have a problem with the collar not matching the cuffs. And for your information Annie is a brunette."

"And where did you meet Annie the beautiful brunette beautician?" Katniss enquired.

"In the queue at the kebab shop," He said wistfully

"How romantic!'

"She was getting chips in a pita."

"Very classy." Katniss grinned.

'She is," Finnick responded oblivious to his friend's cynicism. "Too classy for me."

"So you didn't get her number."

"No," he said looking genuinely wounded. "Why doesn't she like me? Peeee-taar," he threw an arm around his flatmate's shoulders. "You're good with women, they like you, you always manage to say the right things, they're always interested in you." Peeta caught Katniss' questioning glare and gulped sure that he was in for some grief about the topic later. "Not that he ever does anything," Finnick said leaning forward conspiratorially towards Katniss, swaying and only managing to remain upright because Peeta grabbed hold of him. "Because he loves you," Finnick pointed at Katniss stumbling a little more. "Don't you Peeta" he said turning back to his flatmate with a sly grin. "Oh yeah Katniss, god yeah like that, ungh oh Katniss I love you." He mimicked Peeta's groans, grinding his hips against his friend's thigh before Peeta pushed him off.

"God Finnick," Katniss hissed angrily as Jo and the others laughed, "are you ever going to let that go?"

"I can't I'm scarred for life." He said adopting a pained expression.

"You should learn to knock then!"

"I didn't need to knock It was my flat, my bloody sofa! I still can't look at it without picturing Peeta's white ass, it makes me regret the day I agreed to share with him. Why couldn't it have been you on top eh?" He said sending her a wolfish wink. "So why doesn't she like me Peeta," he whined swerving his attention back to his friend with a pathetically sorrowful expression.

"Jeez I don't know Finn, after all you've got such a way with the ladies!" He replied with bitter sarcasm.

"Katniss knows I'm only joking, she knows I love her really." quickly sliding back into mimicking Peeta. "Oh yes…like that…Katniss I love you!"

"Right that's it! Time to get you home." Peeta said manoeuvring Finnick away from the bar. "Can someone grab his coat?"

"I think I'm going to head home," Katniss said when they reached the taxi rank.

"Look if it's because of what Finnick said, he's just being a drunken dick you know how sorry he'll be that he said that in front of everyone when he wakes up in the morning."

"If he remembers in the morning! No, it's not that. I've got my first exam in a week I need to concentrate on revising and that's not going to happen if I don't get a goodnight sleep. And if spend the night you know that's not going to happen."

A taxi pulled up, the driver leaned out the window, took one look at Finnick sat on the curb with his head in his hands and said, "He's not getting in my taxi."

"You take this one Katniss, I'll feed Finnick a kebab and see if I can sober him up a bit." Peeta offered.

"Good luck with that." Katniss gave him a chaste but lingering kiss and turned for the taxi, but Peeta pulled her back again his lips parting hers and kissed her with feeling.

"I'll call you tomorrow okay." He promised.

She nodded and slipped into the taxi, "Come on Finn let's get you something to eat," Peeta said hoisting his friend up on his feet.

When he looked at the taxi again Peeta could just make out Katniss and the taxi driver's conversation. The driver was asking her whether she minded which route they took to drive back to her address but the words he spoke didn't matter, it was their colour that was important.

With every word his speech grew darker and darker until finally it oozed out thick and black like tarseeping from him spreading outwards, its foul tide inching forward, closing in around Katniss.

Peeta let go of Finnick's arm as he stared aghast, oblivious to his friend's curse as he dropped like a dead weight to his arse on the pavement.

There wasn't an ounce of doubt in Peeta's mind that Katniss was in terrible danger. A wave of alarm surged through him sweeping away the frozen inertia of shock as with dismay he realised the taxi was pulling away.

Peeta sprinted after it, screaming for it to stop, but it was too late. He saw Katniss look out of the rear window a furrow of confusion on her brow when she saw him giving chase. She turned to say something to the driver but the car didn't stop. She turned back to face Peeta, he couldn't make out what she was mouthing but he saw her shake her head.

"No," he screamed after the car, "Stop! Stop! Katniss!"

He was running but the taxi was too fast, there was no way to catch it. He didn't know what to do, he felt sick with panic, he needed to stop them, he knew he _had_ to stop them.

Peeta kept running even though he was falling behind, the image of the thick black ooze's encroaching threat meant there was no question of his giving up.

Peeta's eyes widened in alarm as he watched the taxi turn the corner and then disappear from sight. Every ounce of energy left in his body was thrown into one last frantic attempt to catch up, his lungs burning and the taste of blood in the back of his throat as he tore after it.

"Please" he silently bargained "Please just let me catch her."

As he rounded the corner, he was met with the most incredible welcome sight. He'd never thought he'd be so grateful to see a traffic light in all his life. The lights were set on red and there at the end of the road, sandwiched between two other cars, sat the taxi.

Invigorated by this divine shift of fate and fuelled by a sudden rush of hope he dashed towards the car. His knee nearly buckling out beneath him as he stumbled tripping over his own feet but he kept going as he sprinted as fast as he could.

Peeta reached Katniss' door and she stared at him bewildered, as he yanked on the door handle only to find it locked. She turned to the driver but he said something raising his hand to indicate towards the light and Peeta saw with horror that the light had changed to red and amber pre-empting the imminent green light. As the car in front began to move Peeta threw himself in front of the taxi.

"Open the door," he screamed. The alarmed taxi driver waved his arms and Peeta saw the dense dark words spill from the man's mouth as he shouted for him to get out of the way.

"Open the fucking door!" Peeta yelled slamming his fist down on the bonnet of the car. "Let her out," he thumped his hand down again with even greater force. Katniss leant forward to the driver and said something, looking between the driver and Peeta with confused and anxious eyes. Peeta hammered on the hood again, only half registering the pain in his hand as he stared into the driver's eyes and shouted "Open the fucking door or I'll smash your windscreen in."

He heard the click of the central locking being released and he raced round to the rear, tearing the door wide at the same time that Katniss opened it from the inside causing her to tumble out onto the pavement. Peeta caught her pulling her into a desperate embrace.

"Ow Peeta, you're hurting me. What's going on? What on earth are you doing?"

"The driver" Peeta looked over her shoulder to see the taxi drive away. "He…his colour he was completely black Katniss. I've never seen anything like it before….I just knew…I knew I couldn't let you go with him. He was dangerous Katniss I'm absolutely certain. I couldn't let you go…I couldn't let you go with him."

"Its all right, I'm here. I'm safe it's okay." She repeated soothingly and Peeta realised he was shaking.

"I was just so frightened I wouldn't reach you."

She held him to her feeling the frantic gallop of his heartbeat against her chest as she reiterated, "Its all right I'm safe."

"Don't go home, please. Come back with me."

"But Mags will be expecting me to come home." She reasoned.

"She knows you'll be with me, please. I have to get up early for work, you can call her then. Please … I just need… just please will you stay with me." His eyes held a child-like vulnerability that made her instantly agree even though she was still confused about the reason for his distress.

It was only when they were seated in the back of another taxi that Peeta remembered, "Shit Finn! I forgot all about him." There was no answer from Finn's mobile so Peeta left a message. When they got back to the flat and checked his room they found Finnick passed out, face down and fully clothed on his bed.

"I guess he found someone stupid enough to risk him not throwing up in their taxi." Katniss joked but she failed to raise even the smallest of smiles from Peeta.

"Why don't we grab a shower, I feel all disgusting and sweaty from the club?" she volunteered.

Peeta cleaned his teeth whilst she was in the shower and then vice versa. She was disconcerted that he made no attempt to join her and she viewed his grave expression as he towelled off with concern.

When Katniss went to grab a t-shirt from Peeta's drawer to sleep in, he stopped her, 'don't please," and so she slipped naked into bed and his waiting arms. Katniss was still warm from the shower but Peeta's body felt icy cold against her bare skin.

"I was so scared Katniss," Peeta whispered finally breaking the heavy silence that had fallen over them. "I knew, I just knew he was going to hurt you, I could see it in his words. I didn't think I was going to be able to save you. I didn't know what to do."

"But you did save me, he didn't hurt me, I'm all right. Look at me," she lifted her head from his chest to hold his gaze. "Whatever you saw, whatever you thought was going to happen. It didn't. I'm here with you. I'm safe." He nodded at her reassurance but his eyes still held the same fear she'd heard in his voice. This maudlin depression wasn't like Peeta and his mood was beginning to scare her.

She stretched her neck up to kiss his jaw and then his bare chest as she lay her head back down and she felt his arms tighten around her. She stroked the skin of his arm and shoulder as almost absent-mindedly she began to sing to him. She felt his body relax, his arms grow heavy and finally his breathing slow as he fell asleep.

Katniss must have fallen asleep too, as she woke a few hours later with a full bladder busting for the toilet. She eased herself out from the weight of Peeta's arms that still pinned her to him, careful not to wake him.

She was just leaving the bathroom when she heard his anguished cry of "Katniss!"

Peeta was sat up in bed with the side lamp on when she rushed back to the bedroom. "Where were you?"

"I just went to the bathroom." Katniss replied surprised at his agitated tone.

He reached out for her and she took his hand as he pulled her back under the covers with him.

"I dreamt…" he shook his head not wanting to recall the images he'd seen, "I lost you and when I woke the bed was empty. I just…" He shook his head helplessly.

"Shush Peeta, it's okay it was just a dream," she soothed stroking his cheek and then combing her fingers gently through his hair she brought her lips to his. The intention of her kiss was to bring comfort but it wasn't her calm reassurance that he wanted.

He needed her, he had nearly lost her and that feeling, that desperate clawing feeling, that someone or something could take Katniss, the one person that made everything else mean something away from him and that worse he was helpless to stop them filled him with a dark dread. Waking to find himself alone, his nightmare had felt all too real. He needed to know that this, Katniss here with him and not the horror of losing her to the blackness, was what was truly real.

He stole her kiss to meet his increasingly frantic need, his own returning kiss fiercely demanding as he rolled them over covering her body with his. His lips forceful as they moved on hers, garnering the physical reassurance he sought. His tongue deepening the kiss, feeding on the knowledge that she was his.

His lips sought out the flesh of her neck with a force that would leave its mark. The sound of her breathy gasp of surprise as he sucked on her skin burst bright before his eyes, momentarily eclipsing the darkness, as his mouth travelled down toward her breasts. His hand roughly claiming one whilst the other succumbed to his greedy mouth. He wanted to hear her, he needed her light, the redeeming brightness of her sounds that would surely drive out the lingering darkness. His teeth raked her nipple, elongating and hardening the peak with their punishing bite. She moaned at the sensation, her fingers tightening in his curls clasping his head to her breast seeking a repeat, her body arching to offer herself up as she let forth an "oh" of tortured delight that made him throb.

But he ripped her hands from his hair pinning them down on the bed either side of her head reclaiming the control he needed to fulfil his own selfish agenda. His mouth returned to hers, his kisses harsher, even more demanding than before as resting on his forearms he let his hardened flesh slide against the slick heated skin between her legs.

His strangled growl of wanton gratification deafened her own moan as he slid against her again and again. Until, with his hands gripping her knees hooking her bent legs higher and wider, he slammed into her.

"Ah Peeta!" her exclaim was an explosion of bright sunset behind his closed eyelids, followed by bursts of light as each following thrust elicited another sharp audible release of breath from her.

"Oh god! Katniss!" Driving into her faster and harder and harder, revelling in the tangible reality of the pain of her nails on his back.

"Fuck Katniss…I…fuck I can't…" But he didn't need to, as her body tightened around his and the bright white-yellow light of the sound of her orgasm blinded him.

She swore she saw it too behind the lids of her eyes, her head still reeling from the intensity as Peeta came. Not with the usual loud release of her name but a vehemently fierce cry of "Mine."

She welcomed the aftermath of his collapsed weight on her, their limbs tangled as they lay panting and he muttered the same oath again quietly but no less resolutely against her hair "mine," to which she gave a dazed exhausted reply of "always" as he fell asleep and Katniss, her befuddled mind a whir of emotions, followed soon after.

Katniss must have been close to waking when the alarm clock went off as she was able to register Peeta turning it off on the first buzz rather than the usual routine of letting it beep for several minutes before reaching out to smack it with a tired groan. She let him believe that he had managed to slip out of bed without disturbing her and she listened to him leave the room and head to the bathroom.

Katniss rolled onto her back and stared at the ceiling in the grey morning light. With confused concern she assessed the bizarre events that had taken place the previous evening. Peeta's irrational behaviour, his violent outburst at the taxi driver and his genuine fear for her life made no sense. Peeta was the rational, calm counterbalance to her hot headedness. He was gentle and tender, vocal and passionate during sex yes but never like last night. He'd never been like _that_ before, he'd never fucked her so hard she thought she was coming apart at the seams. She put a hand to her breast finding her nipple still tender as she recalled his aggressive touch and his possessive cry as he'd come. She didn't know what to make of it all, not least the troubling thought that surely she shouldn't have enjoyed being manhandled like that. Everything about her background should make her shy away from men who liked to be forceful and rough with their women and she was disturbed that perhaps this worrying penchant meant she was more broken than she'd ever imagined.

Peeta's stomach knotted with unease when he came back from the bathroom to find Katniss sat up in bed. He wasn't sure what he'd been hoping for, it was unrealistic and unforgivable to wish he could sneak out of the flat without talking to her. She held the bedsheets hugged to her but her neck was clearly visible to him. He was appalled at the sight of each mark he'd branded on her skin, each one a reminder of his behaviour and a sickening link to the past bruises he'd seen on his mother.

"Peeta?" He realised he'd been staring at her dumbstruck. "Are we good?" Her voice was small and uncertain.

"Shit. Katniss, I'm so sorry." He hurried to the bed to sit next to her. "I didn't mean.. last night I was just so…" He clenched his fists frustrated by the inadequacy of his words to profess how wretched he felt. "I shouldn't have, I'm sorry. Did I…did I hurt you?"

They rarely spoke about their pasts but there was an unspoken understanding of abuse in both their childhoods. The thought that he had hurt her, that his actions gave him anything in common with that animal Cray disgusted Peeta.

"God no Peeta! I'm fine." She said in shock.

"Don't say that."

"Its true. Did I at any point tell you to stop?" She demanded her voice rising.

"No but…"

"God Peeta don't you know me at all? Don't you know I wouldn't do that, I wouldn't let you hurt me. Last night it was _different. Y_ou're not usually so intense, so…um…forceful but I…er…" she closed her eyes in an awkward wince as with embarrassment she confessed. "I liked it."

"You did?" He was stunned.

"Yes. I wouldn't, you know, want it like that all the time. I don't think I'd be able to walk straight," she gave a little smile. "But that doesn't mean I wouldn't want to…um, well…for you to be like that again sometime."

"Really?"

She nodded her cheeks bright crimson as she admitted, "It was…" she swallowed. "You were all dominant and assertive and it was kind of hot."

She managed to get a tiny smile out of him as he shook his head in relieved disbelief. Then his face fell serious again as he cradled her cheek in his palm. "I don't know what got into me, I just think I was so frightened about losing you. You know how much I love you right?"

"I know." She nodded, a smile spreading across her face matching her own wave of relief as he kissed her forehead.

"One day not now, but when you've finished school and been to university, and we're old and boring, and I've found my first grey hair will you marry me Katniss Everdeen?"

"Of course," she replied without blinking an eye, the question no surprise to her, it wasn't the first time he'd asked.

"Shit!" he cursed abruptly on catching sight of his alarm clock, "I'm going to be late."

He rushed to get dressed and as he did Katniss snuck about his room stealing articles of his clothing to wear home. Peeta was in the kitchen making toast for them to eat on their journeys but he heard the reaction clearly when Katniss looked in the bedroom mirror to tie her hair up and saw the souvenirs dominant Peeta had left on her body.

"Peeta fucking Mellark - I am going to kill you!"

* * *

_**Author's note**_

_**Eek! Hope there aren't too many disappointment readers out there. It took me a really long time to decide whether to carry on from the kiss at the end of chapter 2 or not. But in the end I decided on a time jump as there were things I wanted them to do that I wasn't comfortable with a 16 (ish) year old Katniss doing. But I'll make a deal with you - I promise you a 'first time' one shot before the end of the story [probably going to live to regret that commitment] so that we can explore the beginnings of their relationship.**_

_**Hope you liked the chapter anyway - I would love to hear what you thought. And thanks to everyone who left a review on the last chapter, it means a lot and its hugely encouraging to know people are out there enjoying it. So thank you!**_


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter Four**

"You fancy a quick pint Peeta?" Cyan asked as they changed out of their kitchen uniforms after a long evening. Peeta worked with Cyan Marvell at the Michelin three starred restaurant Cornucopia where, after qualifying three months ago, Peeta had managed to gain an apprentice position. The pay as a kitchen junior wasn't exactly fantastic but that was almost inconsequential compared to the prestige and experience of working under the extremely influential and inspiringly talented, albeit highly erratic and even more highly strung, chef Tigris Rosa.

Cyan, a more experienced commis chef, was a nice enough guy but unfortunately dull as dishwater. So Peeta was glad that he had already made plans to meet Finnick and wouldn't be stuck suffering though a boring drink with his colleague trying to figure out how to make a polite excuse for an early escape.

"I'm already meeting some friends but you're welcome to join us," he said hopeful that Cyan would decline his offer.

"Okay, that sounds great." Cyan said, jumping at the invitation.

Peeta sighed internally whilst skilfully managing to maintain a friendly smile.

They found the others tucked in a quiet corner of the pub. Sat at the table with Finnick were Thresh, but no sign of Clove, and Jo with her work friend Sienna. _Great first Cyan and now Sienna could this evening get any better?_ thought Peeta cynically. Sienna made Peeta uncomfortable, she was always a bit too eager for his company when Katniss wasn't around. He'd mentioned it to Jo hoping she might have a subtle word with her colleague, but Peeta should have known better. Jo had just laughingly called him a stud and told him he should be flattered. But he wasn't. Sienna's flirting made him feel awkward and frankly a little guilty. Not that Peeta would ever consider doing anything, even if he didn't already have a girlfriend, Sienna really didn't do anything for him. Katniss, perhaps through unwarranted jealously, had once joked that Sienna looked like a fox and, although it was cruel, Peeta had to admit Katniss kind of had a point.

It hadn't skipped Peeta's attention that lately Sienna had been meeting Jo for a drink more than usual and he couldn't help thinking it was no accident that it coincided with Katniss' absence. Katniss hadn't been out much over the last few weeks, devoting herself to some last minute cramming and getting through her A-Levels. They still spoke on the phone, or at least texted every day, but between her exams and his work schedule they hadn't had time to meet up more than a couple of times. Peeta understood how important doing well in these exams was to Katniss, unlike him she'd always excelled academically and she was predicted to get high grades. He didn't want to be the distraction that got in her way and messed things up for her, but he missed her like crazy.

Finnick was sat at the end of the table staring forlornly into the depths of his pint glass.

"What's the matter with him?" Peeta asked tilting his head in his flatmates direction.

"You mean why does he have a face like a slapped arse?" Jo said. "Well, that would because of Annie."

"Her again?" he looked at Finn for confirmation but he just nodded without looking up.

"He found out where she worked," Jo continued the amusement bubbling up in her voice, "decided he'd go in and book a treatment with her. But of course moron here couldn't go and have something normal like a facial or a massage. Oh no, he only goes and books a leg wax."

"I panicked, it was the only thing I could think of. A facial seemed too girly," Finnick tried to justify, "

"And a leg wax didn't?" Thresh said raising his eyebrows.

"I told her I was a professional cyclist," reasoned Finn and Peeta laughed out loud.

"Only she asked him who he thought was going to win the Tour de France and he says Lance Armstrong," Jo sneered.

Peeta groaned and Sienna giggled.

"It was the first name that came to me."

"What about Chris Froome or Bradley Wiggins? You do know Armstrong was banned for drugs right?" Peeta asked.

"Yeah I do now." Finnick replied gloomily.

"So I take it she didn't agree to go out on a date with you?" Peeta guessed.

"No, but on the plus side he does have baby smooth legs now!" Jo mocked and Peeta couldn't help joining in the others' laughter at Finn's expense.

Peeta was half way through his second pint when he spotted the front headline of Thresh's folded newspaper. When he flipped it open he nearly choked as an icy chill slid down his spine.

**Second body found **and beneath a picture of a dark haired girl, not all that dissimilar to Katniss in age or appearance. As he quickly scanned through the article he found the piece of information he had been both expecting and dreading. _Amber Clancy was last seen getting into a green taxi. _ Katniss' taxi had been green. It had a statement from the missing girl's friend who remembered Amber getting into what they thought was a taxi, but neither of the girls had checked whether the car had been displaying the correct taxi license plate or whether the driver's registration was hanging in the front of the car. With a sick guilt Peeta realised that he hadn't considered checking when Katniss had got in the taxi either.

Peeta knew it was the same car. He hadn't reported the incident and now a girl had been murdered. A second one. When had the first body been found? Had it been before or after the incident with Katniss three weeks ago? Peeta hardly ever read the paper or listened to the news. It could have happened any time but if he had gone to the police, there was a possibility he could have at least saved Amber Clancy if not the other girl. But what exactly was he supposed to say to the police?

"I think I'm going to call it a night," he said distractedly still staring at the article.

"You sure?" Sienna said looking disappointed, "We're going to head to District 13 after this are you sure you don't want to come?"

Ignoring her invitation to go clubbing, Peeta turned to Thresh and asked, "You mind if I take the paper?".

"Nah mate, it's all yours." Thresh said and Peeta made his goodbyes.

Peeta kept re-reading the article over and over all the way home. As if by reading it enough times a previously hidden gem of information would suddenly, miraculously be revealed to him that would make everything make sense.

When he got back to the flat there was no way he could even think about going to sleep and finally he picked up his phone.

_U awake?_

A minute of so later a texted response came back.

_No!_

_Sorry, I just need to hear your voice _

His phone rang almost immediately.

"What's the matter?" Katniss knew him well enough to know he wouldn't be disturbing her in the middle of the night if it wasn't important and her voice held her concern.

He took a deep breath unsure where to start. "Have you seen the newspaper today? There's a girl been murdered - the second case apparently - anyway they think…well…she was last seen getting into a green car, a green taxi."

There was silence on the other end of the phone.

"That taxi the other week, it was a green car."

"I know." Her voice hushed with horror.

"I've tried to tell myself I was just being stupid that I can't have been able to tell he was dangerous from the colour of his words, I mean synaesthesia just doesn't work like that. But I know it Katniss, it's the same bloke, I just know it."

"Then you need to tell the police Peeta."

"Tell them what?"

"Everything you remember. The car, the driver, any numbers of the license that you can remember, everything."

"And why do I tell them I stopped the car, that I got you out? I can't tell them about this they would never believe it, they'll think I'm a nut case."

"Just tell them the truth Peeta, it's the easiest way. Its up to them what they do with the information after that and whether they choose to believe you."

"Do you? Do you believe that I could tell he was…that he felt evil just because of the colours?" He sighed dropping his head to rest in his free hand. "How can I explain this to them when I don't understand it myself? Even if they do understand my condition it doesn't explain the feeling, the premonition or whatever you want to call it that I had to save you?"

"I know but I've been thinking about this a lot, about that night and the driver's words all being one colour. It's not really the first time its happened is it? I mean I'd like to think I'm unique," her tone trying to lighten the mood without really succeeding, "but if all my words are shades of yellow, if I don't fit the pattern the way everyone else does then why couldn't the same apply to other people? Why couldn't the way you saw the driver have been the same as me?"

"He was nothing like you!" Peeta countered firmly. "You're…the reason I see you differently is because you are different - to me. The way I feel about you _is_ unique, you are special."

There was a pause and he knew that despite the subject of their conversation Katniss was smiling. "But there has to be a reason why you saw what you did Peeta. Maybe it was because of me, because _I _was in danger. And I do believe you, I didn't to begin with, I didn't know what to think, but I've been playing it over and over in my head and now - with what you've said about this missing girl - I really do think that someway…somehow your subconscious or your condition was telling you that he was a threat."

"So you really think I should call the police and tell them."

"I do."

"Everything?"

"Yes. What's the worse they can do Peeta? Laugh at you? You've put up with that before. But there's a chance you could actually help to stop this guy, maybe save someone."

"OK." he said with a resigned but almost relieved sigh. "I know you're right. Its the right thing to do. I just needed to hear you say it."

"Anytime, you know I'm always right!" He could hear her grinning. "I love you Peeta."

"I love you too. I wish you were here."

"Only one more week of exam hell and then I'm all yours for the summer."

"Can't wait."

"Good night Peeta."

"G'night Katniss."

He stared at his mobile for a long time after the call ended, then taking a deep steadying breath he called the freephone information line quoted in the paper.

He had been expecting an automated voicemail at that time at night, so he was shocked when he was put through to a human. The woman took his details and he gave her a brief summary of what had taken place, a description of the car the colour and model, what the driver had looked like, and the fragments of the number plate he remembered.

When she asked what had alerted him to the danger and made him stop the taxi he told her the truth. He could picture her face on the other end as she wrote **NUTTER** in big letters at the top of his statement. But she retained her professionalism and thanked him for his assistance, telling him that the information would be passed along to the investigating team and that someone would be in contact with him to take a full report if deemed necessary. Peeta was pretty sure it wouldn't be.

Peeta looked at the alarm clock before he switched off his bedside lamp, he'd have to be up again in just over four hours as he was working the lunchtime shift and Tigris had demanded her staff were to be in bright and early for a team meeting before they started their prep work. He yawned deeply, laying his head down on the pillow, his mind feeling lighter than it had for weeks and was asleep almost as soon as he closed his eyes.

_Peeta stared at the picture of the girl on the front of the newspaper the headline Second Body Found glaring at him. His eyes scanned the article but when he reached the name of the victim it no longer read Amber Clancy but Katniss Everdeen. With horror he saw the face that now looked up at him from the front page was Katniss', her eyes terror struck staring at him as the black ink of the words began to run. Spilling from their lines, spreading, merging and flooding over the page running towards Katniss' picture. Her eyes silently begging for help as the thick fingers of darkness reached out and then swamped her. He wiped at the picture, the black ooze covering him, sticking to his skin like tar but he couldn't clear the picture as the final part of the image disappeared, sinking beneath the blackness as he continued to swipe at it, trying to scoop the ink away as in increased hysteria he screamed "No!"_

He woke with a start in the still dull light of early morning. Aware of every dark shadow that stretched across the room. It was too early to call Katniss, especially as he'd kept her up late last night. He had no reason to think that she was anything but safe, asleep in her own bed at that very moment, but even as he tried to calm his rapidly beating heart he was still afraid for her. It wasn't realistic to hope that once Katniss' exams were over that she'd be able to stay every night - Mags was lenient when it came to their relationship not completely lax - but Peeta wanted more than anything to have Katniss with him in his bed where he would be certain she was safe.

Peeta didn't manage to get back to sleep and he spent a long hour watching the clock until it was time to get up. Even then it was too early to call Katniss until he was almost at work, so that their chat was only brief but it was sufficient to let him know she was safe so that he could concentrate on his work for the rest of the day.

When Peeta checked his phone during his break he found he had missed a call from an unknown number. He was surprised when he listened to the message to find it was from an Inspector Abernathy who was following up regarding the information Peeta had given and wanted to schedule a meeting. Peeta called the number back, he spoke with the gruff man only long enough to set up a time but again found himself surprised when the Inspector insisted they meet that afternoon after Peeta got off work.

At the central police station Peeta was led down a warren of corridors and at least one flight of stairs. It didn't seem like a sensible or convenient part of the building to locate the interview rooms and Peeta couldn't shift the foreboding sense of wary unease as he followed the constable down into the belly of the station. Peeta was left in a spartan room housing simply a table and two chairs. He occupied himself trying to find evidence of a two way mirror or viewing panel like they always had in movies but eventually came to the conclusion that there wasn't one.

Peeta waited for what seemed like an age, to the point where he was wondering if they'd forgotten about him and whether he would ever manage to find his way back out through the labyrinth of corridors, when Abernathy finally joined him.

Abernathy was older than he had expected but Peeta decided, from looking at Abernathy's hands and the skin of his neck, probably not as old as his appearance initially suggested. Rather that a hard life had left its toll on him. He had definitely seen better days than today. The lapel of his dogeared brown suit jacket had a stain on it and when he took it off and hung it on the back of his chair he revealed a creased and not particularly clean looking shirt.

He introduced himself holding out his hand which was unexpectedly soft and smooth, considering every other part of his body seemed crumpled. An acrid stale smell of alcohol clung to him, like he'd spent the morning cleaning out the beer barrels in the local pub and then washed up with a nice shower in vodka. What wasn't of a surprise to Peeta was that his name's colour should be reminiscent of alcohol - Abernathy - it was the rich golden brown of a pale ale.

"So Mr Mellark," Abernathy said annunciating his name with precision, "I understand you have some information regarding the driver." He opened the file on the table in front of him. From what Peeta could see it contained little else aside from a typed account of the information he had given over the phone. It didn't have **NUTTER** marked on it but it did have what appeared to be a series of letters and numbers, some sort of reference, written and circled in red ink at the top of the page and Peeta wondered if it was code for time waster or watch out this one is frigging insane!

Peeta nodded.

"Could you speak your answer for the record." Abernathy asked.

Peeta scanned the room, he hadn't seen a microphone or camera when he'd been looking before. "Is this interview being recorded?"

"I don't think there's any need for that at present, do you?" Abernathy asked looking at him intently letting Peeta know he was waiting for an answer.

"Er…no," Peeta said with confusion.

"So you have some information?" Abernathy repeated.

"Yes."

"You say your girlfriend…," Abernathy checked the file, "Miss Everdeen got in a taxi but that you felt compelled to stop her."

Peeta nodded and Abernathy shook his head and huffed impatiently.

"Yes, that's right," Peeta quickly answered.

"And that it was your what do you call it cinna…"

"Synaesthesia."

"Right your synaesthesia that told you she wasn't safe." Abernathy's face was impassive with no sign of mockery but yet still managed to make Peeta doubt his own story.

"Synaesthesia is a neurological condition that connects the senses. So when I hear sounds I also see the colours that my brain associates with them. Usually they're the same for everyone, particular colours for particular words or sounds, no matter who speaks them but sometimes a person has their own individual colour." Peeta said still feeling like he was trying to convince the policeman rather than simply recounting what he knew was fact.

"So this has happened before?" Abernathy said raising his eyebrows either in interest or disbelief it was hard to tell which, as the rest of his face looked just as lazily disinterested as before.

"Um…yes."

"With who?"

"Katniss."

"Your girlfriend? The one who was there that night?"

"Yes. And I could see that this man the driver, his words were all black. But not just black, they were totally dark in every sense. I could feel he was dangerous." Abernathy wasn't looking at him, just jotting down a few scribbled notes in the margins of Peeta's typed report, his hand writing too spidery for Peeta to make out what they said upside down.

"Apart from your girlfriend and this man, this ever happen to you before?" Abernathy enquired still maintaining the same steady tone, apparently unfazed by what Peeta had just told him.

"No." Peeta shook his head thrown by the older man's question. Abernathy seemed more interested in him than finding out about the driver, not that that was to be wholly unexpected.

People were always intrigued to know more about synaesthesia. It was just Abernathy's complete lack of reaction to what he had just told him that Peeta found odd. These days Peeta tended to keep his condition to himself, not exactly a secret just not the first thing he blurted out when he met someone but when he did explain it to people there was usually some element of surprise. Whether it was combined with fascinated interest, scoffing disbelief or wary suspicion - thinking he was pulling their leg - there was always some form of surprised reaction, and that was just telling them about his normal symptoms not claiming he could tell a person's character from the colour of their words. But Abernathy hardly blinked an eye, Peeta wondered if Abernathy was just too drunk to register what he'd just told him.

"So what colour is your girl?" Abernathy said looking up from his notes and for the first time actually looking mildly intrigued.

'Uh…she's yellow," Peeta said, there was the slightest twitch at the corner of Abernathy's mouth possibly indicating humour before he returned to his notes.

"And how does she feel?"

"What!?"

"You said this guy felt or looked dangerous. How does she feel? Your girlfriend this Kathlis, what do her words look like?"

"Um…" Peeta didn't see how this was helping the enquiry, it felt intrusive and completely irregular to be discussing this with the detective especially when he had never fully explained it to Katniss. "Like…um…safe…like home."

"Always?"

"Yes." Peeta responded without an ounce of uncertainty.

"Even when you first met her, huh?"

"Yes," Peeta reiterated firmly, beginning to wonder if Abernathy was ever going to ask him any real questions.

"How about when you argue? I presume you do argue like all couples."

"I don't know her words are fiery, hot but they…she still feels like where I'm meant to be. Look I don't understand what this has to do with the case." Peeta said losing his patience.

Abernathy shrugged, "Nothing, just interested that's all. It's not every day you meet someone with syna-whatnot."

"Synaesthesia."

"So what colour am I?"

"You don't have a colour, just your name. Abernathy is brown."

"Brown?' He frowned thoughtfully, "You don't say."

"Brown like ale."

"Shame, I'd have preferred a good whiskey." he said with a smile as he stood and extended his hand to shake Peeta's. "Well Mr Mellark, thank you for taking the time out of what I'm sure is a busy day to talk to me."

"Is that all you need?" Peeta said confused as he accepted Abernathy's smooth palm again. "Don't you want to ask me any more questions about the driver?"

"Nah, I think we've got all we need in your statement here." Abernathy dismissed with a careless shake of his head.

Abernathy opened the door and another policeman appeared to show Peeta the way out.

Peeta found himself on the pavement outside the station perplexed about what felt like a complete waste of his time.

He pulled out his mobile. "Hi Finn, where are you right now? Great, I'll see you there in ten. Get one in for me, I need a drink."

Peeta woke with a throbbing head and a mouth like week old kitty litter. He downed the strongest coffee he could brew and grabbed a piece of toast to go.

The headlines of that morning's newspaper, advertised on the board outside the corner shop, caught his eye as he walked to the bus stop. **TAXI MURDERER ARRESTED**

Peeta had just enough time to buy a paper before he hoped on the bus, grabbing a seat on the top deck he quickly skimmed through the article.

…_.A police spokeswoman was able to confirm that following an anonymous tip off identifying the suspect, an arrest was made yesterday morning and a 45 year old man has been charged with the double murder…_

Yesterday morning! Which meant the driver was already in custody when Peeta had met with Abernathy. It was great news that the guy had been caught, Peeta could almost feel the weight of concern lift from him, but at the same time he was annoyed they'd wasted his time last night. Why did they bother to interview him if they'd already made an arrest?

Peeta cursed Abernathy. The dirty rotten drunk was probably so half-cut he hadn't even realised the case he was supposed to be working on was already solved. Or more likely whoever was in charge of the case had read Peeta's account, decided he was a time wasting nut job and had used him to prank the old drunk. He bet someone somewhere thought it was a great joke they were having at both their expenses.

_Well fuck the lot of them_, thought Peeta. _Let Abernathy or whoever have their laugh, they wouldn__'__t be the first or the last to want to poke fun at the freak, but like Katniss said what was the worst they could do?_

* * *

**_Authors Note:_**

**_Sorry this chapter seems to have been a long time coming - I got a bit caught up in writing the one shot which now seems to be a three parter instead of one! (I knew I'd regret promising that!)._**

**_Anyway thank you to everyone who has followed/favourited and particularly those who review (I'm very needy I crave the reviews!). I apologise if I haven't got back to everyone but I do try its just been an odd week in the real world. _**

**_I'd be really interested to hear what you think of Haymitch and whether you have any theories about him. (Particularly useful as I haven't completely made up my mind what to do with him yet :)_**

**_Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoy._**

**_p.s A Levels are the exams you do at the end of secondary school at about the age of 18. _**


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5**

There was something about the all encompassing whiteness of the lobby area of the Snow Centre for Clinical Research that Peeta found unsettling. It was unnervingly suffocating in its starkness. With clinically sterile white walls, white polished marble floors and matching staircase, and white leather sofas that encircled clear colourless glass tables. Even the women who worked behind the white laminate reception desk, in their crisp white shirts, appeared to have been chosen for their complexions. It was as if the whole place had been sucked clean of colour, the only reprieve from the monotony of the soulless landscape was the cold glint of highly polished stainless steel, minimally interspersed on the furniture and staircase detailing, and the macabrely bright bursts of crimson on the receptionists' lips.

It was possible the designers had thought themselves terribly clever, intending the whole interior as a visual pun based on the centre's name but Peeta felt they had taken the joke too far. He didn't like lingering in the place, when Katniss' temporary contract was up, he would be glad never to have to set foot in the place again.

But there was _something_ about Katniss dressed in her work wear - the thin pencil skirt, the palest green work shirt, its material sheer enough to give just a suggestion of the outline of her underwear beneath, and the business-like way she pulled her hair back into severe plait that fell down the centre of her back that he would miss when her role came to an end.

Katniss had been fortunate to find a well paying temporary administration role for the whole summer working in the Human Resources department. There had even been an indication that the role might extend indefinitely. Katniss said she should take the opportunity if it did eventuate, but he knew it wasn't what she really wanted to do. Peeta had noticed that Katniss still talked about the future only in so far as thinking about the end of the summer. Although the beginning of autumn heralded in a new academic year, she swore it wouldn't make any difference to her, Katniss was adamant that she wouldn't be going to university.

It was a touchy subject and they'd had more than one argument about it already and were likely to have more before the summer was over. But Katniss insisted that university wasn't a realistic option, she just couldn't afford it.

He knew she wanted to go, after all she had still completed the applications for her chosen universities. "That was just because school nagged me so much to do it." she had protested before conceeding, "And I guess I want the satisfaction of knowing, that even though I'm turning them down, where I could have got in." But Peeta was certain she was in denial and that all her well performed pretence was due to come crashing down after she got her results, declined her offers and had to watch her school friends leaving town to study.

"The course fees alone would set me back 24 grand, and that's before everything else like books, accommodation, food. I just don't want to be saddled with that kind of debt before I've even started really living. It's just not worth it." She had insisted.

"I don't see why you can't go to University here, you could get a study grant to cover some of it and you could stay living with Mags." He'd tried to argue.

"You know I don't want to be living with Mags whilst I'm at university. She's great but sharing a house with little kids? Dealing with the tantrums of whoever new she's got living with her? That's not exactly how I pictured university."

"You could move in here?" He had suggested, without much conviction already knowing her answer.

"Oh Peeta, we've already discussed this. I love you. But I don't want to move in with you. Not yet. If I went to university, I'd want the whole deal. The whole experience. Living in student accommodation, getting a fresh start with new people where no one would know me as the _'__foster kid__'_. I'd just be Katniss. I'd want the freedom to come and go whenever I wanted, so that if I was invited to go out with people after a class I wouldn't have to turn them down because I was expected home." It wasn't the point that Katniss was trying to convey but the message Peeta heard was that she wanted to meet new people and he would just be holding her back if she lived with him. She saw the look in his eyes and knew she'd said the wrong thing.

"I love you Peeta, you know that. And I love staying here with you. But I don't want what we've got to be dragged down by everyday worries, I'm not ready to be having arguments with you about who drank the last of the milk, why you can't ever seem to put your dirty socks in the wash bin or why no one remembered to pay the electricity bill. I like what we have right now, we're too young to turn into some middle aged couple bickering over money or some mundane crap."

"Shit I think you've just described my relationship with Finnick, and we only forgot to pay the electricity bill once." He said with a wry smile. "I just don't like the idea of you having to settle for some crumby job instead, instead of going to Uni. Just don't do anything rash when you get your results, please just consider it, we could make it work."

"Peeta!" She huffed exasperated by his persistence.

"What? We could. You wouldn't have to pay rent, I'd help you with whatever you needed for the course." He protested.

"Peeta I can't ask you to do that, I don't want you wasting your money on me or getting into debt." She reasoned.

"It wouldn't be a waste it would be an investment. As the future Mrs Mellark it makes sense for me ensure you enhance your earning potential in the future. And strictly speaking as Mrs Mellark any debt I have will be half yours too."

"Oh thanks!" She swatted at his upper arm playfully, glad to see his teasing smile return but adding firmly. "Please can we not talk about this anymore. I'm not going to university and that's that."

"Can I help you?" Peeta was jolted from his day dream by one of the receptionists eyeing him loitering conspicuously. He had just finished work and was dressed in the casual clothes he had taken with him to change into, his jeans and t-shirt showing the signs of having been stuffed in a locker all day and not in keeping with the immaculate surroundings. Peeta approached the white reception desk, the shinny white marble counter so polished a faceless shadow of his reflection was captured in its surface.

"I'm just waiting for someone, Katniss Everdeen, she works in Human Resources."

"I'll give her a call to see if she's on her way. Can I take your name?"

"Peeta Mellark."

"Peeta Mellark!?" The voice of the shadow that had appeared beside him in the marble top sounded pleasantly shocked. He turned to see her looking at him with what appeared to be delight.

"It is you isn't it? I've often thought about you, over the what is it 14, 15 years? Are you here for an appointment? Are you taking part in one of the studies?

Peeta, stunned by the expected meeting, gaped at the woman before him it might have been nearly 15 years since he had last seen her but she hadn't changed a day. He would have recognised the grey ghost lady anywhere. With her silver hair and pale grey suit she appeared to fit right in with the decor. She watched him intently and he realised she was waiting for a response. "No," Peeta shook his head, "I was…I mean I am waiting for my girlfriend she works here. She's just temping really, Katniss…Katniss Everdeen she works in HR. She says its a great place to work." He tacked on to the end with a complimentary smile before politely asking. "And you, do you work here as well?"

"I've been actually based at another facility until quite recently but I've just begun some consulting work here. Actually its quite remarkable that I've bumped into you, really a most fortuitous coincidence. The centre has been conducting some simply groundbreaking work concerning neurological responses to sounds, mainly in terms of misophonia but your synaethesia would make a fascinating addition to the study." She said her eyes alight with an eager enthusiasm that he couldn't remember her ever displaying during their sessions.

Peeta cast a quick glance towards the lifts incase Katniss had appeared.

"We do of course pay our candidates for their time." She continued.

"I'm sorry, but I don't think I'd be free to take part. I'm at work most of the day," he declined politely. He saw her eyes flit over him, probably taking in his slightly dishevelled appearance and no doubt making to a conclusion about the kind of job he had.

"Well if you do change your mind she said, putting a hand into her pocket and taking out a business card.

"Peeta, I'm sorry I'm late, I got…" He turned at the sound of Katniss' voice at his side just as she realised he wasn't alone. "Oh I'm sorry I didn't mean to interrupt, Ms Coin." Katniss apologised.

"That's perfectly all right." Ms Coin dismissed, "We were just reminiscing weren't we Peeta?" It hadn't felt to Peeta as if they had been doing anything of the sort.

She tucked her pen back into her breast pocket and held out her card to him. "My numbers are all there, I do hope you'll reconsider my offer. This research really could be a most beneficial project for all involved. And I'm certain it will be almost impossible to locate another subject that displays symptoms even half as strong as I remember yours being. You would really make a most exciting addition to our work."

"We'll I'll leave you two _lovebirds to enjoy the evening,__" _she said, her smile strained as if she found her own choice of endearment distasteful.

She turned and walked briskly out of the building and they followed a step or two behind careful to leave some distance. Peeta felt himself relax as he stepped out of the oppressive whiteness and into the late afternoon sunshine.

"How do you know Alma Coin?" Katniss quizzed.

"I got sent to see her when I was a kid. D'you remember I had to see a specialist when I freaked everyone out by telling them I could see colours? Well that was her. It was only for a year or so. I'm surprised she remembered me."

"Well, you remembered her."

"Couldn't forget her. She kind of scared me a bit when I was little. I was convinced she was a ghost for a while. I'd forgotten her name though, how come you know about her?"

"Hard not to. She's a pretty big noise in there at the moment," Katniss said looking back at the building, "She's just taken over some study and she's got HR in a total flap. She insisted on dismissing the entire team and bringing in her own people. Templesmith's got his knickers in a right twist about having to terminating their contracts and he had a big argument with her about how she couldn't just waltz in demand such a thing, but then Snow - I mean I didn't even know Snow was an actual real person - steps in and tells Templesmith to make whatever Coin wants happen. That money is no object, just pay the old team off. I don't think I was supposed to see it but I got a look at one of the redundancy packages they were offering and it was ridiculous, like a completely obscene amount of money, more than they would have earned in five years if they stayed here. I don't know who she is but she's obviously seriously important. I hope you were nice to her, I don't want you getting me the sack!" She half joked.

"Anyway enough about work, where are you taking me?" She put her hand to the end of her plait and pulled the band from it she was about to start unthreading it, when Peeta placed his hand on hers. He didn't need to ask, she let his fingers replace hers as he released her hair into gentle waves created by the plait's tight weave. She stepped closer as his fingers massaged into her hair bringing her lips to his and all thoughts of Alma Coin were soon forgotten.

* * *

**_Authors notes_**

**_Just a little mini-chapter as I've just had no time to write and it was going to take me ages to get round to finishing the full chapter. _**

**_But I did get a chance to sit down and finally map out this story so I kind of know where its headed and almost how it ends now - but that could all change along the way!_**

**_Anyway I'd love to hear from you it might motivate me to ignore the stuff I'm supposed to be doing and finish the rest of this chapter. _**

**_p.s. this was a bit rushed so I apologise if it is completely full of errors. _**


	6. Chapter 5 part 2

**Chapter Five - Part Two**

Peeta felt more than heard the hot breath of his name at his ear. Its warmth wove its way through his senses melding with the sea of glowing embers that swam behind his closed lids, becoming one with the true sensation of the sun's rays that filtered through the curtains and warmed his skin.

It was probably close to midday but it was the first day in what felt like forever, that he had nowhere he needed to be or anything he needed to do and he was in no hurry to wake up. He was happy to simply lie there, enfolded in the blissful sensation of her voice. Happy after a short but restful sleep, having as usual slept better with her beside him.

But it seemed Katniss had other intentions.

Katniss wasn't sure she could remember the last time Peeta had had a whole weekend off. It seemed that one of them was always in a rush to get somewhere, leaving the other one behind. Now that they had the luxury of time she didn't intend to waste a second.

"Peeta?" The teasing suggestion in her whisper, though laced with promise, was still not enough to tempt his eyes open. Choosing instead to continue to fain sleep not willing, just yet, to let go of the warm surrounds that cocooned him, as he lay afloat in the golden orange glow of her voice and his combined senses.

"Pee-tah," He could tell by the playful lilt of her voice as she singsonged his name that she was fully aware he wasn't really asleep and that not only was she willing to play along with his game she intended to win.

"Peeta." Her mouth so close to his ear she sent a tremor of goose pimples over his skin.

"Peeta." She ran her tongue around the sinewed crescent of his ear until she reached its lobe, gently sucking on its soft flesh before taking it between her teeth with a tug, the result of which he felt directly in his groin. He pressed his lips together to prevent any response, unwilling to admit defeat at the first test, but he was powerless to stop the natural reaction to her game that was taking place within his shorts.

"Peeta" her teeth grazed his neck. "Peeta" her lips were on his collarbone. She continued to repeat his name, interspersed with wet kisses and the trail of her tongue, as her mouth moved over his body.

"Peeta," he almost swore as she caught his nipple between her teeth.

Testing how far she could push him before his self-restraint crumbled, Katniss took him to the tipping point between pleasure and pain before she stopped, unaware that a mere second more and he would have surrendered.

"Peeta," her kisses graced the skin of his stomach and he gritted his teeth against giving into the moan that was desperate to escape.

"Peeta," Katniss' tongue drew a line first to one hip and then back to the other. Her watchful eye noting with wicked glee how he balled the bedsheets tightly in his fists.

"Peeta," she kissed the tip of his length causing his treacherous body to twitch and swell in appreciation.

"Peeta," She took one long languid lick from base to tip that drew a moan of submission from him and brought a grin of victorious triumph to her face. The knowledge she had won the challenge clear in her voice as she said his name one last time before she took him in her mouth.

"Fuck Katniss!" he moaned all notions of self-restraint abandoned. His hands released their grip on the bedsheets to knot in her hair, as her fingernails lightly raked the sensitive skin behind his balls. His voice strained, almost pained as he praised her, "So good…fuck you feel so good."

Katniss pulled back, her tongue circling his head before taking him deep again. "Oh fuck just like that!" his words her encouragement to repeat her action.

Somewhere, in the tiny functioning part of his brain still devoted to rational thought, Peeta knew he was being too loud. But even if there had been enough blood flowing in that direction to process what his mouth seemed to be doing of its own accord, there would have been little he could have done about it. He simply couldn't help being so vocal, in the past he'd tried to hold it back, to keep his mouth shut. He'd even bitten the skin off his knuckle once - when Katniss had thought it would be a good idea to go down on him in the back of a cinema - trying to silence himself, but it was pointless the words and their colours just poured out regardless of how hard he tried. And right that second he couldn't have cared less if Finn, the neighbours or half the street could hear him.

It wasn't exactly as if Katniss appeared to mind. He suspected, quite correctly, that she got off on it. She seemed to make it a mission to see just how loud she could manage to get him to be. Which most of the time was fine but at times, like the occasion in the cinema, it could be bloody embarrassing.

"Fuck Katniss…I'm gonna…shit I'm…oh fuck don't stop…" he pleaded his fingers tightening in her locks and to his relief she didn't, taking everything from him before re-emerging from beneath the bed covers with a smug look on her face at the same time that Finnick yelled out.

"Thank fuck that's over, now can we all get back to sleep!"

Katniss frowned, "I suppose we should stop giving him such good ammunition to take the piss out of us."

"Ignore Finn," Peeta dismissed lazily looking up at Katniss where she rested on one elbow beside him, "he's just jealous 'cause he's getting nowhere with Annie."

"What has he had waxed this time?" she smirked.

"Nothing but he's had a mani-pedi, a facial and a massage so far this week. Apparently the massage was _particularly_ enjoyable, he couldn't get up from the table for several minutes afterwards until the effects had worn off," Peeta laughed. "They had to knock on the door to ask if he was okay and why he hadn't come out."

"That poor girl should agree to go on a date with him just to get rid of him." Katniss said as she absent-mindedly began to draw patterns on Peeta's torso.

"Why would she want to do that? She's making a fortune out of him!" Peeta reasoned, catching Katniss' hand as her fingers edged closer to his still tender nipple.

"I guess, well at least he's really well groomed." She laughed allowing Peeta to pull her toward him as he rolled onto his side wrapping her in his hold.

"Poor Finnick," Peeta commiserated with a shake of his head. "He was really cut up when she told him she had no interest in dating a _boy_ whose only means of transportation is a skateboard and his idea of moving up the career ladder is to go full time in his Saturday job."

"Ouch! So what's he going to do about that?"

"He's looking for a new job."

"Really!? But he loves the record shop."

"Yeah but she's got a point, Finnick's worked there since he got a Saturday job when he was still at school. Annie might have been a bit harsh but she's managed to motivate him out of a serious career rut."

"Maybe," Katniss said dubiously.

"Anyway, it doesn't look like Finn's going to be giving up on Annie anytime soon. He's decided she likes having him around," Peeta grinned.

"How does he figure that out?" Katniss asked incredulously.

"Well he found out Annie doesn't just work at the beauty salon she actually owns the place. All the other girls work for her. When he calls to make an appointment she could have any one of them deal with Finnick and give him his treatments, but she always attends to him herself," Peeta explained as his fingers stroked down Katniss' back.

"Perhaps she doesn't want to subject the other girls to him?" Katniss suggested partly distracted by Peeta's hand as it reached her buttocks.

"Maybe, but then again, perhaps he's right?" Peeta said as he ran his hand the length of Katniss' thigh to hitch her knee up and over his hip, his fingers then finding their way between her legs, gliding over her already aroused skin. All the time watching her eyes intently, as her breathing grew heavier.

Katniss groaned in half hearted protest, "I think I'm too hungry for sex." Yet betraying her complaint by rocking her body against his talented touch.

"Make it worth my while and I'll make you french toast." He offered, not stopping the ministrations of his fingers.

"Did you really just offer me french toast in exchange for sex?" She joked, her breath catching in her throat as his thumb ran over her clitoris causing a delicious jolt through her body.

"Uh-huh," he nodded with a sly grin. "Didn't you know its a universally excepted form of currency?"

"Depends, will it be made with cream?" He nodded. "Seems like a fair trade," She quipped, sealing the deal with a kiss.

He deepened the kiss as he rolled onto his back taking her with him so that she lay on top of him. From there she pushed herself up to sit with her hands braced on his chest and he admired the view.

"Did I tell you how beautiful you are?" he asked seriously.

"You might have mentioned it a few times last night." She answered a lot less seriously.

"Good, 'cause its true."

"You're not so bad yourself Mellark," she replied running her eyes over the definition of his chest and stomach to the dirty blonde of his happy trail disappearing down beneath where she straddled him. He brushed her compliment off with a shake of his head.

She raised herself up, eyeing his erection, "Mmmhm not bad at all." She murmured in appreciation followed by a moan of needy gratification as she sank down over him.

"Fuck, Katniss you feel so good." She was pleased by his guttural groan. She rolled her hips, gaining her another expletive. There were times that she wished Peeta could be a little quieter but most of the time, like right at that moment, she wanted to hear him. There was something about the knowledge that she made him completely lose control, that no matter how much he tried to fight it, she made him feel too good to contain his reaction. That it was _her_, ordinary not particularly beautiful _her and _not one of the other girls she knew he could have. She'd seen them, girls that more than overshadowed her with their looks and figures, and the way they looked at him. Girls like fox face practically falling over herself to shove her big tits in Peeta's face every time she saw him.

But it wasn't them who were with him, it was her and it was her name that he would be moaning. And that knowledge made her feel powerful and sexual. He made her feel beautiful, he made her feel wanted.

She contracted her muscles around his thick hard length as she rose and then lowered herself slowly, her deliberately prolonged movements earning her another string of praise and profanities. She raised herself up again, intending to slide down his length at just as teasingly slow a pace as before but he grabbed her hips bringing her down on him as he thrust up and she cried out. Her hands went behind her, resting on his strong thighs, working with him as her body rose and fell matching the new heightened tempo his hold had set.

One of his hands left her hips to move between her legs his fingers finding her clitoris and working over the sensitive flesh with a deft touch. She moaned her head falling back arching her breasts towards him as her back curved and his other hand took the invitation, cupping and teasing her.

"God I love seeing you like this, you're so fucking beautiful Katniss, your body is amazing." She felt a thrill run through her, his words intensifying the sensations she was already experiencing. His urgent declaration, the tightening grip of his fingers on her nipple, his hands on her aroused skin as she met his thrusts sent a tremor running through her body and she cried out as she clenched around him.

"Fuck Katniss…" She fell forward, momentarily spent and she let him manoeuvre her onto her back raising her ankles to his shoulders as he slid into her with a primal grunt.

"Christ! Katniss…you feel so tight ….I…fuck…I…" Seconds away from his imminent orgasm, she watched him move above her, his tangled mess of sweaty curls falling over his forehead, the defined muscles of his shoulders, the blaze of lust and admiration obvious in his eyes as he looked at her. He'd never looked more gorgeous.

She had decided long ago that if Peeta was a colour he was blue. Blue like his eyes, the blue of clear fresh water, or the brightest summer sky. Having known then in her moment of clarity that they were made to be together. And she felt it again with fierce certainty, perhaps even more so because of recent events, that she was meant to be the bright sunshine that would keep the darkness from his cloudless sky.

"I love you Peeta," she professed, an almost angry disappointment with herself that she couldn't convey the exact depth of her feelings at that precise second.

The colours of her love danced bright before his eyes, swirling and entwining with his own release of her name as he came.

"I love you," she repeated as he lay his weight on her, and again as she kissed his sweaty brow. Suddenly the force of her feelings was frightening. Fearful that it was too good, too perfect, that they were tempting fate. She felt an urge to make him promise never to leave her, that they would always be like this, to promise her that everything was always going to be all right. But she didn't because she knew that no one could promise such a thing. So she swallowed down her morbid fears, refusing to let what she dismissed as hormonal emotions ruin their day and reminded him of their deal.

"I think you'll find you owe me french toast."

"The deal was if you made it worth my while. I'm not sure that counts, you might just get a bowl of cereal for that. Ouch!" he cried as she pinched his side. "Okay, okay," He protested, grabbing her hand as she tried to pinch him again, "I'm getting up. Just give me a second."

Katniss sat on the kitchen counter, her legs dangling, as she watched Peeta cook. One of her favourite pass times was watching him immerse himself entirely in the kitchen, even when it was as simple as preparing her something for breakfast.

Peeta had hated school, sure he'd made some good friends there like Thresh, Finnick and Jo but he had floundered in an academic environment. It wasn't that he was stupid, he was far from it, even though she knew some of the harsher teachers had been unkind enough to tell him otherwise over the years, Peeta simply wasn't suited to the traditional classroom style of teaching. Expect him to sit for long hours immobile at a desk and you had lost him within the first few minutes but put something in his hands, raw materials of any kind, be it wood, charcoal or food and he could create something wonderful. She would never have been so egotistical as to say he would have been lost without her but to an extent she knew Peeta would have written himself off and let himself believe the crap the teachers had told him, he would have accepted a life of unfulfilling minimum wage jobs or worse simply slid into a life on the dole never expecting or facilitating anything different if it hadn't been for Mags and herself. There had never been any question that either of them would allow Peeta to fall down that route.

The best decision he was ever coerced and manipulated into making by the two closest females in his life, was signing on to the catering course. He excelled right from the beginning, his passion and creativity immediately evident. Peeta graduated top of his class and although he down played it, Katniss knew it was a big deal that he'd beaten off numerous others to win the apprenticeship with Tigris. Katniss had no doubt that Peeta was going to succeed in his chosen field and in the meantime she was enjoying the benefits as he honed his culinary skills.

Peeta slid the slice of french toast onto his plate and turned to face Katniss who, dressed in one of his baggy T's and shorts, was already eating her own slice with her fingers.

"We do own a table you know?" Peeta reminded her with a found smile and a nod in the direction of the pine kitchen table.

"I know but I prefer it here," she replied licking her sugary fingers with a gratified moan. "Why is it your french toast tastes so much better than anyone else's?"

"I don't know? Why exactly how many other people have been making you breakfast recently? I hope it wasn't part of the same bargain we had." He asked raising his eyebrows in interest.

"Oh I don't know," she pondered coyly, "it's amazing what I get up to when you're working all evening."

"Is that so, huh?" His face stern but a glint of mischief in his eyes, as he spread her legs so he could come closer standing between them.

"Uh- huh," she nodded trying to maintain a serious expression.

"Perhaps that's where Finn's going wrong with Annie. If all you need to get a girl into bed is offer to cook her breakfast, perhaps I should give him some cooking lessons."

"I think it's going to be a lot harder to convince Annie than that!"

"I don't know, you seemed pretty easy!" Peeta grinned suggestively.

"Huh!" She huffed, "Are you saying I'm easy Peeta Mellark?" and she swatted at his shoulder but he caught her hand before her sticky fingers could reach him.

"No. You are anything but easy!" He teased and laughed at her scowl. "But you can be very sweet when you're all grumpy." She was about to give some smart retort in response when he brought her hand to his mouth, taking each finger in turn to suck and lick the sugar from it slowly, and her words were forgotten as her mouth fell slack and her breath grew heavy. "Mmm, cinnamon," he murmured appreciatively as he placed her hand back in her lap. Delighting in how easily he had silenced her for once.

She could tell by the spark in his eyes and the grin tugging at the corners of his mouth he felt self-satisfied at how easily he had manipulated the situation and distracted her.

_Two can play at that game_ she thought, _then we__'__ll really see who is in control here_. With eyes dancing wildly with mischief, she asked as sweetly as she could, "Do you want to find out if all of me tastes so sweet Peeta?"

She watched his eyes drop to her lap and then widen as she slipped her fingers under the waist band of her shorts.

"Fuck," he groaned his mouth falling open, as she clearly worked her fingers over herself beneath the material. Amazed that even as well as he knew her, she still had the ability to shock him.

"Do you want to taste me Peeta?" Her words were amber, liquid gold and fiery sunset filling the room with heat. The instinctive nod of his head accompanied by a pulsing throb in his shorts. She withdrew two fingers tasting the very tip of one with a slow, precise, seductive touch of her tongue before offering them to him. Peeta took hold of her hand feeding both fingers past his lips and sucking greedily, wetting her own appetite for him as she felt her muscles clench between her legs.

He freed her fingers, capturing her mouth instead, their kisses equally hungry for the other. His hands slipped beneath the oversized t-shirt she wore, his hands quickly claiming her breast, roughly palming her before trapping their peaks between his fingers. Each gasp of pleasure his fingers drew from her flashed before his eyes and he ground against her as her hand tightened in his hair, her kisses growing more demanding…

"Oh for fuck sake! You're kidding me - in the kitchen now?!"

Peeta and Katniss sprung apart, Katniss' face burning as she rapidly smoothed down her top and Peeta position himself in front of her whilst trying to shield the bulge in his shorts with his hands.

"You have got a room you know?" Finnick continued. "Go on get your horny asses out of here before you taint the kitchen any further." He said pulling a disgusted face.

"Sorry man," Peeta apologised with a mix of amusement and embarrassment. "There's some french toast there if you want it?" He added as he and Katniss made a hasty dash for the bedroom, where their continuation of what they'd started in the kitchen gave Finnick enough reason to decide to go out for breakfast.

When Peeta and Katniss finally made it out of the flat they took a walk along the river, it was unseasonably hot for an English summer, and by the time they reached the park where the river fed into the boating lake they were boiling.

"Why don't you save us the spot in the shade," Peeta said looking towards a bench shadowed by well placed tree, "and I'll go get us some ice creams."

He climbed the grassy slope up to the cafe looking back down to where Katniss was waiting, a smile blooming as he saw her now fully reclined along the full length of the bench her arms folded behind her head.

It was swelteringly and stiflingly airless inside the cafe and as a consequence hardly anyone had chosen to sit in it, however there was a long queue waiting for drinks and ice creams to take away and it took ages before he was finally served.

He paused at the bin outside to peel the wrapper from the ice lolly he had chosen. He could see Katniss still stretched out on the bench, he couldn't see her eyes behind her sunglasses but she looked like she was asleep. He smiled knowingly, recalling their earlier physical activities and how little sleep they had got a lot the night before.

"That your girl then?"

He turned at the unknown but yet familiar voice to find Inspector Abernathy sat on top of a picnic table, his feet resting on the bench, eating an ice cream.

He nodded with his chin towards Katniss. "That her, little Miss Yellow?" he asked before taking a messy bite out of his ice cream.

Instead of answering his question Peeta asked his own. "Why did you get me in, ask me all those questions the other day, when you already had the driver in custody?"

"Never hurts to have a few more statements from witnesses does it?" Abernathy responded.

Peeta frowned narrowing his eyes, he was certain that there wasn't a court in the country that would give credence to his particular witness statement to support a conviction and Abernathy would have known that before he called him in. But then the fact they would have wanted to gather as much information as possible that collaborated the arrest they'd already made was entirely plausible. "I suppose," Peeta conceded.

Abernathy was still looking at where Katniss lay. "So she knows all about your cinna…"

"Synaesthesia," Peeta corrected, "of course." The frown of consideration Abernathy pulled as if implying he thought that was a mistake, annoyed Peeta. "Why wouldn't I tell her?"

"Don't know?" the other man shrugged noncommittally. "Just seems like the sort of thing that might be best kept to yourself, you know." Finally redirecting his gaze from Katniss to Peeta himself as he continued. "There's a lot of funny people in this world, don't you think? I would have thought sometimes it was hard to know who to trust with information like that."

"I don't know what you mean. Why should I hide what I am from anyone?" He responded curtly defensive. Unhappy with the policeman's implication that he had something wrong with him that was best kept secret and also by the knowledge that on numerous occasions he'd found it easier to do just that.

Abernathy shrugged, the corners of his mouth turning down in another thoughtful frown before asking. "So I suppose you told all your friends exactly what you told me happened with the taxi driver then?"

Peeta didn't need to answer he could tell by the self-satisfied, questioning smirk on Abernathy's face that he already knew the answer.

"I guess I'd just be careful who I told that sort of stuff to if I were you. You never know how people are going to react." Taking a final bite of his ice cream he tossed aside the unwanted lolly stick like a discarded cigarette butt and got down from the table, stretching with an audible protest from his joints.

"Well don't keep the girl waiting," Abernathy said casting his view back down the slope to Katniss. "Funny." he said as he wiped his fingers on his already grubby looking trousers. "I wouldn't have put her down as a yellow, looks more like a green to me."

He turned to go before spinning astonishingly nimbly on his heel, reminding Peeta of a character from one of the black and white musicals Mags used to watch on television every Sunday afternoon. So that Peeta would have been strangely unsurprised if the policeman had suddenly broken into a dance routine. "Here," Abernathy said proffering his card, "in case you think of anything else."

Peeta watched Abernathy's back for a while before remembering the melting ice creams in his hands and hurried down the slope.

Katniss was alerted to his return by the shadow blocking out her light. "About time" she said as she lifted her sunglasses, pushing them up to her hair as she sat. "What kept you so long?"

"There was a long queue."

She searched his face, waiting, thinking he had more to say but he didn't.

She swung her feet from the seat as he nudged them out the way with his knee and he sat down beside her holding out her ice cream. She unpeeled the wrapper exposing the ice cream beneath.

She took a bite of her ice cream, cracking through the chocolate coating to the softened ice cream beneath, watching Peeta out of the corner of her eye as she did so. Noting the knotted frown between his brows and his distant gaze. She slid a little closer on the bench, until their thighs sat flush and nudged his knee with hers. He slowly woke from his thoughts, looking at her and returned her smile. His lips were drawn to hers as she leant in closer and closer and then leant right past him to cheekily steal a bite of his ice cream. She smacked her lips together with naughty delight as she laughed and he rolled his eyes at her with a sigh of disapproval before breaking into a grin himself as he complained.

"And there was I thinking you were about to thank me for waiting ages in the boiling heat to buy you an ice cream but no, I should have known better than to trust you, all you wanted was to steal mine!"

"Oh Peeta," she replied with mirth, "haven't you learnt? You can't trust anyone!"

* * *

_**Author's note**_

_**I feel like I need to apologise - first I only managed half a chapter and then the second half appears to have gone off on a complete tangent and really just become a bit of a smut-fest (oops). I'll try to get the story back on track next time - hopefully. **_

_**I hope there's someone still reading out there - I feel like I might have lost some of you along the line, so please let me know if you're still out there reading. In particular I'm slightly worried about Peeta! It seemed like a good idea to make him a bit on the vocal side during sex but then I realised how uncomfortable I feel about writing dialogue during sex! So let me know if it sounds ok or whether its just sounds weirdly gross and I should just avoid all mention of it in future.**_

**_Look forward to hearing from you guys if you have time I feel like there might be something else happening out there today - oh yeah its the world cup quarter finals, that's it isn't it?_**


	7. Chapter 6

**Chapter Six**

"It's Katniss isn't it?"

Startled Katniss looked up, she hadn't heard anyone approaching over the hum of the photocopier, and found herself unexpectedly staring into the pale intent eyes of Alma Coin. "You're Peeta Mellark's girlfriend?"

"Uh…y..yes." Katniss faltered under the uncomfortably close scrutiny, instinctively taking a step backwards only to find herself trapped, prevented from moving by her position in front of the copier

machine.

"How are you enjoying working here?" Coin asked, her keen eyes waiting for an answer that it felt Katniss' future at the company depended on.

"Uh…its good…I mean great. Everyone has been so nice to me."

"You've just finished your A Levels haven't you," Katniss nodded relieved to be able to answer without speaking. " I suppose you're waiting for your results to come through." She nodded again.

"Will you be continuing your studies or will you be hoping to stay on with us?"

"Yes…I mean no," Katniss stumbled. God what was it about this woman that made her feel so uncomfortable? 'I mean I'm not going to university and the role here is only temporary so I'm not sure that continuing is an option."

"I'm sure there are always opportunities for bright young things like yourself. I always think it's such a disappointment to have a valuable asset slip through your fingers once you've found one." Katniss frowned at the woman's dramatically flattering assessment of her, certain there was no way she could be described as a valuable asset to the company. Her main job description seemed to be making the rest of the HR team cups of tea. In fact she was fairly certain they could replace her with a trained monkey and no one would notice for days. "Was HR the field you hoped to enter?"

"Um…no," Katniss confessed with a slight wince of awkwardness, hoping her answer wasn't just about to jeopardise the possibility of a future job.

"Oh?" Ms Coin prompted expecting her to elaborate.

"I wanted to study earth sciences, geophysics specifically, so work in a related field would be my ideal dream."

"Really?" Katniss saw the flash of surprise in her eyes. "But you've decided against continuing your studies?"

"Yes, for the time being at least."

Alma nodded thoughtfully before her eyes brightened as she moved on to a new topic. "It was an incredible coincidence to bump into Peeta here the other day, did he mention it?"

"He said he attended sessions with you when he was little."

"He didn't mention the study?" Katniss shook her head and the brightness in Coin's eyes faded, her lips pressing into a hard flat line. "That's a pity he really should reconsider, I think that taking part in the study could be extremely rewarding for everyone."

Again Katniss sensed a weight behind Coin's words as if there was an implied, unspoken alternative to being rewarded.

"I'd be ever so grateful if you could ask Peeta to call me, he has my card." Katniss nodded under the expectant watch of Coin who rewarded her with a condescending smile that made Katniss feel like she'd just been patted on the head and called a good girl.

"Well don't let me keep you from your work," Coin said and turning on her heel she disappeared back down the corridor in the direction she had appeared to have come from.

It wasn't hard for Katniss to see why Peeta had been scared of Coin as a child and she made a mental note to ask him a few more questions about Coin and the discussion he'd had with her when she saw him later.

Katniss arrived at Peeta and Finnick's building to find the door already open. When she stepped into the apartment she walked into an unexpected scene of drama.

Clove was on the sofa, sandwiched between two of her close girl friends, in tears. Finnick and Jo were on the other side of the room conversing in animated whispers, Jo in particular looked angry and was gesticulating aggressively.

No one seemed to notice Katniss. She looked about the room, but couldn't see Peeta. At that moment Sienna appeared from the kitchen with a bottle of wine in one hand and several wine glasses clutched by their stems in the other.

"Oh, hello Katniss" she said still the only person to acknowledge her. "Peeta's in his bedroom, but I wouldn't interrupt…"

Katniss did not like fox face's apparent comfortable familiarity with the flat nor her telling her not to interrupt Peeta in his bedroom as if she had some authority over the matter and knew better what he wanted. So bristling with jealous annoyance Katniss ignored Sienna's advice.

She opened his bedroom door to find Peeta sat on the bed with one arm thrown round the shoulders of Thresh who was sat his head bowed in his hands.

Thresh didn't raise his head but Peeta saw her and mouthed as he gestured to the door with his head, "one minute."

She backed out the door, closing it as she went.

She turned to find fox face wearing a self-satisfied 'I told you so' grin. "Here," she said extending a full wine glass.

"I'll have one of those," Jo interrupted and Sienna walked off just as Katniss opened her mouth to ask what was going on.

She sipped the cheap, too warm, white wine and took another good look about the room. Finnick was in a corner on his mobile. Sienna was pouring Jo a drink. Clove her face blotchy and red was still crying. Her friends, leaning in attentively with concerned faces on either side, were assuring her that everything was going to be okay.

Katniss jumped as she felt a hand on her shoulder and turned to find Peeta looking worn.

"What's going on?" she felt the need to whisper as he took her glass from her hand and took a drink. He led her into the empty kitchen and closed the door.

"Clove found out she's pregnant. Her mum found her in tears and she had to tell her, then her dad went crazy when he found out it was Thresh's. He's um…well turns out he's a complete racist biggot basically…told her he's not having some daughter of his living under his roof when she's pregnant with…well I think you can imagine what he said. Thing is they were broken up again, she's not sure what to do, her parents are telling her to get rid of it and she doesn't want to do that just because they're telling her she should but at the same time she's not certain she wants to keep it. And Thresh - shit he doesn't know what he's doing - I think he's just in total shock. I mean you know what those two are like, they're always breaking up, if they're not fucking they're fighting. He's saying he'll have to marry her, but I think right now he'd rather catch a one way ticket to the furthest he could get away. He wont of course, in part because he wants to stick two fingers up to her father and support Clove and the baby, but mainly because well, he really does care about her but christ he's only twenty he wasn't planning on being a father right now."

"I don't think she was planning on being a mother either by the looks of it. Shit!" she shook her head. "What are they going to do?"

"I don't know," he said honestly. "Thresh hasn't even told his mum yet," he grimaced.

"She's going to kill him," they both finished in unison as Katniss pictured Thresh's vehemently religious mother finding out about her son's predicament.

"Anyway," Peeta said pulling Katniss closer as he leant back against the kitchen counter. 'I'm glad you're here."

"I'm sure Sienna would have kept you from getting lonely." Katniss meant to joke but it came out more bitterly than intended.

Peeta groaned at the thought and buried his head in the nook of her neck to place a soft kiss to the skin there and setting goose pimples loose over her flesh.

"I missed you," she whispered. Peeta had been working evening shifts ever since his weekend off almost two weeks ago. She had stayed over a couple of times but he'd been so exhausted and she'd felt bad about disturbing him when she had got up early for work, tired herself from being disturbed by him coming in late. So they hadn't repeated it too many times. Besides Mags didn't approve of her staying over too many consecutive nights.

Hands on her hips he pulled her in close, before halting. "We are safe right? You…we…we're being careful?"

"Oh my god Peeta, if you had any idea quite how bordering on obsessional my regimented pill taking is, you would know there is absolutely no way we are about to find ourselves in their situation. I'm not screwing my life up getting stuck with a baby. Fuck, if that was me out there I wouldn't be umm-ing and ahh-ing about what to do, I'd already be down the clinic sorting it out!" Only when Katniss' heated ramble came to an end did she realise she'd let her mouth run on too long.

Peeta didn't say anything but the grim line of his mouth, slightly down turned at the corners told her she'd gone too far. "I mean, I'm only eighteen, I'm not ready yet, there's stuff I want to do…that I want _us_ to do first, I'll probably feel completely different in ten…or maybe fifteen years from now." She added hurriedly.

"It's okay," he reassured her, "having kids isn't exactly top of my to-do list right now either." Which was completely true but it didn't mean he wasn't hurt by her evident revulsion at the idea or how easily she could discuss getting rid of his child.

"Anyway we don't have to worry about it now, it seems that discussing unwanted pregnancies is an affective contraception in its own right." He said rearranging his deflating erection with a rueful smile.

"That's a pity. Are you sure I can't help you out with that?" she said replacing his hand with hers and running her palm over the front of his jeans with a wicked grin.

"Katniss," he gave a warning hiss, "there's a whole flat full of people out there."

"You'll have to be quiet then," she said leaning in to fake a kiss but trapping his bottom lip between her teeth instead with a teasing nip.

He groaned pulling away, "You know that isn't going to happen."

"Shame," she pouted stepping back.

"Wait." Peeta's gaze searched the top of the fridge before falling on the set of keys stowed there. "The landlord came round yesterday and dropped these off. There's a couple moving into the flat downstairs tomorrow but he wont be around to hand them the keys, so he left them here for us to pass on. Its empty at the moment. Do you fancy taking a quick look?"

"Where are you two going?" Jo's observant eye caught them as they headed out the door.

"Just going to go and grab some snacks from the corner shop." Peeta quickly told her.

She scrutinised them suspiciously before asking, "Get me some crisps."

"About bloody time," Jo said as they re-entered the flat, 'what were you doing growing the bloody potatoes?" Then she looked them up and down and snorted. "You never went to the shop did you? God I should have known, you two are so predictable. You'd have thought tonight might have put you off," and then with a shake of her head and a disgruntled huff, "I really wanted some crisps."

'Who is that?" Peeta asked seizing the opportunity to steer the conversation topic away from the one that was making the tops of his ears burn with embarrassment. The three of them turned in the direction of his gaze, to where a brown haired girl was sat talking to Clove on the sofa.

"That…," Jo said with a dramatic pause, "is Annie."

"Annie as in Finnick's Annie?"

Jo nodded.

"But…" he frowned, "I don't understand what's she doing here?"

"Finnick was at the salon when he took the call from Thresh, Annie over heard him and got talking to him. All that charm he's been piling on for weeks with no success and all it took for her to give him a chance was to overhear him being a genuine caring human being instead of a smooth talking sleaze."

"But why is she here?"

"Well..," Jo sucked her breath in through her teeth giving another suspense filled pause that made Katniss want to shake her, "apparently Annie's got a kid. She got pregnant when she was seventeen. When she heard about Clove, Annie suggested coming round to talk to her."

"Wow!" Katniss said. "And so how is Finn taking the news about Annie's baby?"

"Not so much a baby. Annie is twenty-two, so her son is like five now. And it doesn't seem to have put Finn off especially since he discovered what her son's name is," Jo said. Both Peeta and Katniss waited with dwindling patience for her to continue. "Her son is called Finlay, Fin for short - can you believe it? Finnick is convinced that it's a sign or something."

"Where is Finnick?" Peeta asked looking about.

"In your room with Thresh at the moment."

"Thresh is still in there? Hasn't he come out yet?"

"I'm not sure he can," Jo said, "I think he's frozen in shock."

"I'm going to go check on them," Peeta said excusing himself. He reached the closed door just as it opened and Thresh came out.

"You okay?" Peeta asked.

"Nah, not really," Thresh said downcast, "but there's no point keep going over it and wishing we'd done things different is there? I just got to man up and deal with, haven't I?" He gave a grim smile and he headed over to join Clove on the sofa.

Peeta raised his eyebrows at Finn who appeared in the doorway, "So Annie, eh?"

Finnick gave him a dopey looking grin before gesturing to himself. "Come on mate, you knew there was only so long she was going to be able to resist this?"

Peeta shook his head in amused amazement at his friend's renewed cocky confidence.

"Anyway I think those two need some privacy." Finnick said looking over at where Thresh now sat holding Clove's hands in his. "And besides I think I should grab this opportunity to take Annie for a drink. Oh and Peeta," Finn added throwing his arm around his mate's shoulders, "next time you decide to borrow the neighbours' flat close the window eh? No one wants to be listening to that."

Everyone, including Clove's best friends cleared out of the flat to give the couple space to talk and the group found themselves in the local pub. It was a grotty dive of a place but at least it was quiet and they found a table easily.

Katniss found herself sat between Annie and Peeta. She noticed that Sienna settled herself opposite him and that she adjusted her top as she sat down to show a little more flesh. She saw Peeta's eyes flicker there, drawn by the flash of cleavage before quickly looking down, reaching out for one of the dogeared cardboard beer mats that sat on the table with one hand and seemlessly slipping the other around Katniss' shoulders.

Katniss leaned into him and she felt his hand lightly squeeze her shoulder. She understood it was his way of wordlessly reassuring her that there was no need for her to feel jealous. She knew it was true but it didn't mean she wouldn't like to scratch the bitch's eyes out if she had the chance.

Whilst this silent communication passed between them Katniss managed to maintain her attention on what Annie was telling her.

Katniss had been quick to judge Annie from the scant information she knew about her. She had formed a pre-opinion of her based purely on her profession but the reality was Annie was as far removed from the popular ditzy caricature of a stereotypical beautician as she could be.

Whilst Finnick was held up at the bar (there was a problem with the feed from the barrel apparently which appeared to be beyond the decrepit old barman and Finnick had ended up getting involved) and in the meantime Katniss had begun talking to Annie, commending her for talking to Clove. Annie in return had filled her in on her background.

After a slip up with her teenage boyfriend she'd found herself pregnant. They'd tried to date for a while afterwards but it was never meant to be a relationship that lasted forever they were only seventeen after all and they'd gone their own ways. He'd got a job on an oil rig in the north sea and close contact with his son just hadn't been practical. She still sent him an annual photo of Finlay every Christmas but he had another girlfriend and was getting married soon. He had a new life and she understood that he didn't need the past holding him back. It wasn't malicious, it was just life and Annie didn't hold anything against him. It had been her decision to keep the baby and she had always expected to do it on her own.

What had surprised her had been the attitude of her parents, especially her father. She'd spent days crying in her room and he'd come in one day and told her it was time to stop. That what was done was done and there was not much they could do about it, if she'd made her decision then she needed to stick by it and get up out of bed and get on with life. That these things tended to happen for a reason, although god knows what that reason was, but that they'd work out at some point. He also pointed at her stomach and said, "That bairn in there needs someone he can look up to. So get your arse up out of bed and get yourself to school. You wont be doing him much good lying about here feeling sorry for yourself will you?"

So she finished her year at school and did what she'd always planned to do which was to follow her interest in holistic therapies. She took a course, got a job in a spa that dealt in homeopathic and holistic as well as beauty therapies and then with the backing of her parents as guarantors she put together a business plan and opened her own treatment centre. None of which she gratefully conceded could have been possible without the complete support of her parents and she was well aware how different things could have gone if their attitude had been different.

Katniss was completely astounded and honestly in awe of the young women who proudly but modestly explained that she'd won young business woman of the year for the district the year before.

Annie side stepped the conversation towards Finnick. "What is he really like? Which one should I believe is the real Finnick?"

"The one that knew you wanted a pint of Kronenbourg and not Fosters so is currently down in the cellar of this dump helping some old guy sort out the feed problem in the pipes just so that you wont be disappointed. Don't get me wrong Finnick has a mouth on him, he can talk himself in and out of trouble, he can be cocky as hell but he's also a good friend. And honestly I've never seen him like this about anybody before. You can't just say it's the chase he's interested in because that really isn't his style. He knows he can get women, he doesn't have to make the effort they come to him. But this, its different. Seriously I don't think he would have had his legs waxed for anyone else."

Annie pressed her lips together holding back her pleased smile. "He had acupuncture, an indian head massage and reflexology on the same day last week. I swear the only thing he hasn't had so far is a colonic!" She laughed. "So do you really think I should give him a chance? I don't really date, in fact I avoid it like the plague. I need to be sure he's a good guy before I commit myself to this."

"I promise you he's a good guy. I can't promise you that things will work out with you two, but you'll never know if you don't try."

"God you sound like my father!"

"White heather?"

Their conversation was interrupted by the sound of the old woman's voice as she appeared on the other side of the table between where Sienna and one of Clove's friends had been chatting.

"Lucky white heather," the old woman repeated holding up the sprig wrapped at the end with tin foil.

"No thank you." Peeta declined politely.

'I'll read your palm boy, want to know your future?"

"Oh yes please. I love palmistry." exclaimed Sienna holding out her hand but the old woman reached out across the table snatching the bar mat, that Peeta had still been absent-mindedly playing with whilst he'd been talking with Jo, and turned his left hand up scrutinising it closely.

She traced a dirty fingernail across the top of his palm beneath his fingers. "You've a curious heart line boy," she said in her faint Irish accent. "It starts here see," she tapped at the point and everyone at the table instinctively leaned into see. "That there, it tells me you've found your love early." Katniss couldn't help the smile that spread across her lips as she felt the squeeze of his hand on her shoulder again. "But this is were it gets interesting. I've never seen anything like it. That tiny mark there, like a little circle it is, do you see it? There's sadness in your life there and almost immediately now there's a break see, the line is broken and you will be too." She said bleakly. Katniss felt a cold shiver run down her spine as she looked up between the woman and Peeta's face. "And then after that, between you middle and your ring finger, it becomes a wave so it does, do you know what that means?"

"No," Katniss heard herself answer in an enthralled whisper for him.

The old woman ignored her speaking only to Peeta. "You'll have many lovers but you wont know love." Peeta's face looked grey.

"Hmm," the old lady murmured thoughtfully as she stroked his palm, her discoloured nail repeatedly tracing over the line as it came to the edge of his hand. "But you shouldn't give up hope."

She moved on to a lower section of his hand. "You're creative," she concluded. "But again there it is, the line is broken. There's a change coming in your life, I can't tell you what it is but it will change everything for you."

"The life line next," she said scratching the line near the heel of his thumb. Woman's eyes widened momentarily. "That's a little unclear," she dismissed airily but Katniss had seen the look of shock on her face.

"What does it really say?" she heard herself ask and for the first time the old lady looked at the young woman about whose shoulders her customer's other hand was placed.

"An accident, an injury, I can't tell you if it's his or someone else's. Could be someone very close to him but the break in the line happens soon after and that's when his life will change."

Katniss wasn't sure if it was herself she heard swallowing with a gulp or if the sound came from Peeta beside her.

"And what about the fate line doesn't he have one of those?" asked Sienna peering at Peeta's hand still sounding excited and apparently unaffected of what the old woman had been saying.

"Sure he has one of those," the old woman confirmed but she didn't continue. Instead her stained and crooked teeth chewed thoughtfully at the puckered skin of her bottom lip, her forehead lined with thoughtful concern.

"And?" Sienna prompted.

"Time will tell," the old lady said closing up Peeta's palm and patting his closed fist.

"I…uh.." Peeta shook his head as if coming round from a daze. "How much do I owe you."

"You keep your money lad, this one's on old Sae. And here," she handed him a posy of the white heather before offering another to Katniss. "And your girl here will be needing one also."

Afterwards Peeta dismissed the whole thing as the ramblings of a crazy, most likely drunken or senile old woman who'd say anything to get money out of gullible people. He didn't tell Katniss how after that night his dreams became increasingly disturbed, how he would wake up in a cold sweat, paralysed with fear that he had lost her.

Katniss was eager to agree with him, laughing the whole thing off. After all the lines on your hand had no more direction over your life than tea leaves at the bottom of a cup or the movements of the stars in the heavens.

But she kept the white heather anyway, she pressed it between some heavy text books and carried it in her purse at all times.

Just in case.

* * *

_** Author's notes:**_

_**So this was supposed to be about twice as long but it was taking too long.**_

_**I've just come back from holiday where I was scribbling away in a notebook but I've managed to get myself in quite a mess with this story. Basically I've written the ending, the epilogue and possibly the beginning of a sequel. But - and this is a big but - I haven't actually written the middle! Yeah like I said a bit of a mess. **_

_**Anyway there was supposed to be a juicy silly bit of smut involved in this chapter when they were in the neighbours flat but it didn't seem to fit with the tone towards the end of the chapter. But I might post it as a separate outtake on tumblr - I just haven't made my mind up whether it was just too silly to publish.**_

**_Anyway I hope there's still someone out there reading, I'd love to hear your thoughts on this chapter._**


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